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Sparse trees hide the entryway. One sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area 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 air above.

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

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one day recently, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and water. A week after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, intends to build 20 facilities in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”