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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an underground hospital observe a screen showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. The facility opened 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 Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, plans to build twenty units in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some injured personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had two severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. He and the other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”