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Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

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

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the ground. This is the safest method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

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

During one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone has to protect our nation,” he said.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect twenty units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two severely injured casualties who came at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”