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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. A sloping timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor showing enemy suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. This is the most secure method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for treating wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their position was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces must protect our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to build twenty units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”