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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. A descending timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor displaying Russian suicide and surveillance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

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

During one day last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to erect 20 facilities in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. He and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”