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Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. One sloping timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital look at a screen displaying Russian suicide and surveillance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. It’s the safest way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which release explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

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

During one day recently, three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, 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 medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect 20 facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who came at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”