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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. A descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

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

This is the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and water. A week following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, plans to build twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”