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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an underground hospital observe a monitor showing enemy suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit spent 43 days in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece 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. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone must protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, plans to erect twenty facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

One 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 because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”