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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. A sloping timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's secret below-ground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the earth. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel 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 ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to build 20 facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain injured soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”