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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. A descending timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the earth. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

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

On one afternoon recently, three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a first-person view drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted 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 hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must protect our nation,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, plans to erect twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”