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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. One sloping wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance drones in the region.

This is Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the ground. It’s the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

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

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone 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 get better. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he said.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to build twenty facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “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 alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”