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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A descending wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room 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 zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground medical center look at a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. This is the safest method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to build twenty units in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said certain wounded personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”