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Sparse trees hide the entrance. A descending timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground medical center look at a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for treating injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to defend our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect twenty units in total. The head of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of 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. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”