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Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. A sloping timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an underground medical center observe a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is the nation's secret below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. This is the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for treating injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad endured 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to erect twenty units in total. The head of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”