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Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. One descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an underground medical center observe a monitor displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit spent over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to build twenty facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. He and the other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”