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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. A descending timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor showing enemy suicide and surveillance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the ground. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

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

On one day last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point 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 shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

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

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, intends to build twenty units in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”