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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One descending timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. This is the safest method of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for treating injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day last week, three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Someone must protect our country,” he said.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to build 20 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 survival of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”