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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. One sloping timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a screen showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres under the earth. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

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

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to build twenty units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to await the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”