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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. A descending timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground hospital look at a screen showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters below the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground facility for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone has to protect our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to build twenty facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”