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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. A sloping timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for treating injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his unit endured 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to build twenty units in total. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some injured personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a bush. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”