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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. One sloping wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the safest method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit spent over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect twenty facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain injured soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. He and the two other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”