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Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. A descending timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. The facility began operations 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 city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. This is the most secure way of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and water. A week following he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent 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. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the two other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”