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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. A sloping wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. This center opened in August 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 6 metres below the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground facility for treating injured troops in the eastern region.

During one day recently, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to erect twenty units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “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 so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”