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Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. A sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center observe a screen displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one day recently, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, plans to erect 20 units in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill patients who came at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a bush. He and the two other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”