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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. A sloping timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an underground hospital observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the ground. This is the safest method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for treating injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and water. A week after he was injured, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

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

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone has to protect our country,” he said.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to erect 20 units in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to await the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”