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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. A sloping timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

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

This is the nation's covert underground medical facility. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the ground. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for treating injured troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to defend our country,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to erect twenty units in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”