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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center look at a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the most secure method of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day last week, a group of three soldiers 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 minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their location was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and water. A week after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone 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 recover. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone must defend our country,” he said.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to build twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform 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 operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”