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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. One sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center observe a monitor displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for treating wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

During one day recently, three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent over a month in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone must protect our nation,” he said.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”