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Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground medical center observe a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. This is the safest method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent over a month in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. A week following he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking 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 nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, 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 recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, intends to build twenty units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured patients who came at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”