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Sparse trees hide the entrance. A descending wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground hospital look at a screen displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, took off a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect twenty units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our military and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. The patient and the other military members were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”