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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. One sloping timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground hospital observe a monitor showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the ground. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. He and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”