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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. A descending wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an underground medical center observe a screen showing Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Someone has to defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect twenty units in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured patients who came at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”