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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. One descending timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the safest way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: rations and drinking water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to build 20 units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two severely injured patients who came at 3am. 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 other option.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”