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Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. One sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor showing Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the safest way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day recently, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV aerial device caused a small hole 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 trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone must defend our country,” he said.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above up to ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”