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Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. A sloping timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital look at a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres under the earth. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

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

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad spent over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, intends to erect 20 units in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had two severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”