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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. One sloping timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor showing Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the area.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the earth. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one day recently, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are drones all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. The patient and the other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”