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Sparse trees conceal the entrance. One descending wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the safest method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats 30-40 casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

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

On one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. A week after he was injured, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he said.

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

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. He and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”