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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. One sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's secret underground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the ground. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent 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 surgeon said.

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

During one day recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

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

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”