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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. One sloping timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying Russian suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's secret below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. This is the safest way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which drop grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

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

During one day last week, three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped 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 were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to build twenty units in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred 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 greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”