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Sparse trees hide the entryway. One sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

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

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres under the earth. This is the most secure method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

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

On one afternoon recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their position was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to build twenty facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to carry out 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 operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”