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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. One descending timber passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors monitor a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an underground medical center look at a screen displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating injured troops in the eastern region.

On one day last week, three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and water. A week following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. 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 reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to build 20 units in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of aerial attacks. “We had two severely injured casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked under a bush. He and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”