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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader'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 medical cot, removed a stained bandage and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to erect twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain injured personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”