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Sparse trees conceal the entrance. A descending wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an underground medical center observe a screen showing Russian suicide and surveillance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground facility for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day recently, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, intends to build 20 facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”