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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. A descending timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the region.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the ground. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

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

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces has to defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to erect twenty facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained some wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”