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Sparse trees conceal the entrance. A descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad endured over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect twenty facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some wounded personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”