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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground medical center observe a screen showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon last week, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he said.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, plans to erect twenty facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”