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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground hospital observe a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the earth. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, plans to build twenty facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill patients 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 so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”