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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. A descending wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground hospital observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad spent 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped 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. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to build twenty facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”