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Sparse foliage hide the entryway. One sloping timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance drones in the region.

This is the nation's secret underground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. This is the safest way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for treating injured troops in the eastern region.

During one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect 20 facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a bush. The patient and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”