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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. One sloping wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters below the earth. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for treating injured soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV drone ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to erect 20 units in total. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”