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Sparse trees hide the entrance. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. It’s the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for treating injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. A week following he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to build 20 units in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier through 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 Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”