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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an underground hospital observe a screen displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert 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 urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by drone: food and water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view drone caused a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty units in total. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a bush. He and the two other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”