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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. One descending timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a screen displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert 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 combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone has to protect our nation,” he said.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, intends to erect twenty units in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a bush. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”