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Sparse trees hide the entrance. A sloping timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

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

On one afternoon recently, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV drone caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to build 20 facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain wounded personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”