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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. A sloping timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the ground. It’s the safest way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

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

During one afternoon last week, three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see drones all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone 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 arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

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

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, he noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, intends to build twenty units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally 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 challenging” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”