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Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. One descending timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an underground hospital look at a monitor showing Russian suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. This is the safest method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one day recently, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and water. A week after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 units in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained some wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”