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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. One descending timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center look at a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day recently, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad endured 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the other military members were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”