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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, doctors monitor a display. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center look at a monitor showing enemy suicide and surveillance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the ground. This is the safest way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad spent over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces has to defend our nation,” he said.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 units in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our military and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some wounded personnel had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”