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Sparse trees conceal the entrance. A descending timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is the nation's covert underground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his unit endured over a month in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and water. A week after he was injured, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking 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 nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to erect twenty facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”