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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

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

On one day last week, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and water. A week after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone has to protect our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above up to 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 construction, intends to erect 20 facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, 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 project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded personnel had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”