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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital look at a screen showing Russian kamikaze and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the ground. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are drones all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone caused a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he said.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to build twenty facilities in total. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”