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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. One sloping wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is the nation's secret underground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. This is the most secure way of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one day recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad spent over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

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

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the other military members were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”