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Sparse trees hide the entryway. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. This is the most secure method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and water. A week following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Someone has to defend our country,” he said.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to build 20 units in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”