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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. This is the most secure way of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, intends to erect twenty units in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “We had two severely injured patients who came at the early hours. 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 surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”