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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. A sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

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

Welcome to the nation's covert underground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. This is the most secure method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

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

During one afternoon recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit endured over a month in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed 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 has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, intends to build twenty facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain injured personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”