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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. One sloping timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an underground hospital observe a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. This is the most secure way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his unit spent over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: rations and water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces has to defend our nation,” he said.

Doctors treat 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 human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to build 20 units in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some 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 came at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”