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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. A sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground medical center look at a screen displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. This is the most secure method of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see drones all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to build 20 facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”