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Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. A descending timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground medical center look at a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are drones all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a first-person view drone caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to build 20 facilities in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. The patient and the other military members were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”