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Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. One descending timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground medical facility. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the earth. This is the safest way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad endured 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 position was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone caused a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a bed, removed a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, plans to build 20 units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”