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Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. A sloping timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month 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 Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. It’s the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call 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 recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he said.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, plans to build twenty facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. The patient and the other military members were taken to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”