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Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground facility for treating wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one day recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was on foot. All supplies came by drone: food and water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone has to protect our country,” he said.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to build twenty units in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. 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 hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”