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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. A descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center observe a screen showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground facility for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit spent over a month in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in all. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some injured personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”