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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground hospital look at a monitor showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's secret underground hospital. This center opened 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 Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres under the ground. It’s the most secure method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon recently, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery 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 few months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to build 20 facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”