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Sparse trees hide the entrance. A descending timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters below the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he said.

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

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to erect 20 facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some injured personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had two severely injured patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”