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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. A descending wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center observe a monitor displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and water. A week following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he said.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. He and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”