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Sparse trees conceal the entrance. One descending wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center observe a screen showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the earth. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to erect twenty facilities in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two severely injured patients who came at the early hours. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”