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Sparse trees hide the entryway. One descending wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs 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 movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground facility for treating injured troops in the eastern region.

During one day last week, three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured 43 days in a forest area close to 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 drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must defend our nation,” he said.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to build twenty units in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”