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Sparse trees hide the entrance. A sloping timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital observe a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the ground. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

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

On one afternoon recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect 20 units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”