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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. A descending timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. This is the safest method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground facility for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to build twenty units in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”