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Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a screen showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is the nation's secret underground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. This is the safest way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating injured troops in the eastern region.

On one afternoon last week, three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces 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. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It 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. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces must protect our country,” he said.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect twenty units in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”