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Sparse trees hide the entryway. A sloping timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center look at a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the ground. This is the safest method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. 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 the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad spent over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and water. A week after he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces must defend our nation,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to build 20 facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who came at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”