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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A sloping timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a screen showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is the nation's secret underground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from 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 injured military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit spent over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to build 20 units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”