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Sparse trees hide the entrance. A descending timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect twenty units in all. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”