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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. A descending wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

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

On one afternoon recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 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 dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone 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, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to build twenty facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”