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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. A descending timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors monitor a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. This is the most secure method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, he said he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty units in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a bush. The patient and the other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”