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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

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

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground facility for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, intends to build 20 facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain injured soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a bush. The patient and the other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”