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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. A sloping timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a screen showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one day last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and casualties. 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 for many months. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”