Ukraine's military evacuates wounded soldier with aerial drone

Ukraine's military announced a pioneering medical evacuation via aerial drone, marking a significant first for the nation amid Russia's ongoing invasion. The Ukrainian Ground Forces 92nd Assault Brigade revealed on Monday that they had successfully airlifted a wounded soldier from the front line using a heavy-lift drone. For nearly 500 days, soldier Konstantyn Vlasenko of the 30th Separate Brigade had been stranded in a location inaccessible to Ukrainian ground forces or robots due to dense mining and intense Russian drone activity, according to Ukrainian news outlets.

Wounded by a Russian drone earlier this year, Vlasenko had resorted to partial self-amputation of both legs in a desperate attempt for rescue. A Gurzuf Defence heavy hexacopter, originally designed as an attack drone, was repurposed for the rescue mission. Ukrainian specialists collaborated with the company to adapt the unmanned aircraft to safely carry a person without flipping or swinging it, testing the new configuration before the operation.

Four Ukrainian brigades collaborated on the intricate seven-day preparation for the rescue, which took approximately one hour and 15 minutes to execute. The drone covered a distance of nearly 40 miles, with other Ukrainian drones employed to distract the Russian military during the operation. Gurzuf Defence co-founder Pavlo Feldbloom stated that the company did not initially aim to create an evacuation platform but developed a heavy-duty, modular, multi-mission platform that could also serve rescue purposes.

He emphasized that aerial evacuation should remain a last resort, as the risks to a wounded individual in the air are deemed too high. Prior to the aerial evacuation, an attempt using a ground drone, pioneered by Ukrainian forces during the war, was thwarted when the drone was destroyed on its way to Vlasenko. Upon landing, Vlasenko described the evacuation flight as calm and expressed relief at being back on friendly soil.