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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. A sloping wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

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

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the earth. This is the most secure way of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was on foot. All supplies came by drone: food and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to defend our country,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to erect twenty facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”