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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their location was on foot. All supplies came by drone: rations and water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked under a bush. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”