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Sparse trees hide the entrance. A descending timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. It’s the most secure method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one day last week, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their location was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to build twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a bush. He and the other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”