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Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground medical center observe a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad spent over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. A week after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone has to defend our country,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to build 20 units in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained some injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the other military members were taken to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”