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Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an underground hospital look at a monitor displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect 20 units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who came at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”