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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. One descending timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

During one day recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV drone caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone must protect our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, plans to build twenty facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a shrub. He and the two other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”