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Sparse trees hide the entryway. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor showing enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. This is the safest way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing 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 fragment of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone must protect our nation,” he said.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, plans to erect 20 units in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had two severely injured patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”