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Sparse trees hide the entrance. A sloping wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In 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 zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating injured troops in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces must defend our country,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to build 20 units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured patients who arrived at the early hours. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked beneath a bush. He and the other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”