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Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. A sloping timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground hospital observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres 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 lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit spent 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect 20 facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”