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Sparse foliage hide the entryway. A descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean 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 of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres under the earth. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

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

During one day last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and water. A week after he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar hit 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 unit. Someone must defend our country,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to erect twenty facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who came at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”