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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground hospital observe a screen showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the earth. It’s the safest way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one day recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he said.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, intends to build 20 units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”