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Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. A sloping wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center look at a screen showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day last week, three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to erect twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”