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Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. One descending timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the ground. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

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

On one afternoon recently, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone must protect our country,” he said.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, intends to build 20 units in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain wounded personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. He and the two other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”