15-kilometer flight into kill zone: Ukraine’s drone rescues wounded soldier by air
Andrii, callsign Donbas, had lost a foot and could not be reached by vehicles.
Ukrainian soldier Andrii, a 54-year-old fighter who had lost a foot, remained stranded for 57 days before being rescued by a drone. Labeled Donbas, the wounded soldier was located just two kilometers from the Russian border and could not be reached by traditional means. Ukraine's CODE 9.2 unit employed the StarGate aerial evacuation system, enabling a 15-kilometer flight to extract the wounded fighter.
This method of evacuation has become increasingly dangerous, as aerial drones like StarGate can access positions inaccessible to ground vehicles or crawling robots. StarGate, a purpose-built aerial medical-evacuation drone produced by Ukrainian company SkyFall, carried Andrii to safety, completing its third evacuation mission. The drone's flight marked progress in a war where evacuation has become one of the deadliest tasks.
Written by urgent.news from Euromaidan Press's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
