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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. A descending timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a screen displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. It’s the safest method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which drop grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, stated a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, plans to erect 20 units in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”