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Sparse trees hide the entryway. One sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground hospital observe a screen showing enemy suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

On one afternoon last week, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, plans to build 20 facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”