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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. A descending wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center observe a monitor displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres under the ground. This is the safest method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

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

On one day last week, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit spent over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, stated a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces must protect our nation,” he said.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect 20 facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”