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Sparse trees hide the entrance. One sloping timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center observe a screen displaying Russian suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to erect 20 units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”