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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. A descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. This is the most secure way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

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

During one day recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a forest area 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 military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

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

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to protect our nation,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand 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.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to build 20 units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of aerial attacks. “We had two severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”