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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. A descending wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center observe a screen displaying Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

This is the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the ground. This is the most secure method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day recently, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Our forces has to defend our nation,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of aerial attacks. “We had two severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a bush. He and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”