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Sparse trees hide the entryway. A sloping timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground hospital look at a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility 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 Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. This is the most secure way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a first-person view drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Someone must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to build twenty units in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”