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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. A descending timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are drones all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to protect our nation,” he said.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, plans to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”