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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground hospital look at a monitor showing enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground facility for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above up to ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to build 20 units in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”