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Sparse foliage hide the entryway. One descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an underground hospital observe a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's secret below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

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

On one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and water. A week following he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”