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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One descending timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground hospital look at a monitor showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. This is the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day recently, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week following he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it 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. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, he noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had two severely injured patients who came at the early hours. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”