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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. One descending wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

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

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for treating wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

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

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a stained bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces must defend our country,” he said.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect 20 units in all. The head of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain wounded personnel had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”