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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the region.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

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

On one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad spent 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, stated a first-person view drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned 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 laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, plans to build twenty facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain wounded personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”