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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. A sloping timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground hospital look at a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. This is the safest method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for treating injured soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, 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 assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, intends to build twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain injured soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had two severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”