A flying drone has successfully evacuated a wounded Ukrainian soldier from a front-line battle with Russian troops for the first time, according to Ukrainian personnel. The injured Ukrainian soldier was surrounded by landmines and Russian drones, meaning he couldn't be pulled out of danger by traditional means, the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade said on Monday. Footage shared by the brigade shows a drone pilot navigating the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) toward a patch of land, and the wounded service member attaching himself to what appears to be a large, six-rotor drone.
The device abruptly takes off, carrying the soldier with it. The hexacopter in the clip is roughly double the size of the wounded man hanging beneath the rotors as it lowers to the ground and lands. A statement says: "The specialists of our company took responsibility to do what no one had done before — evacuate a serviceman with the help of an aerial drone." Newsweek could not independently verify the footage.
It's not clear when nor where it was filmed. "This is a historic event, at least for our unit," one of the commanders with the 92nd's Unmanned Ground Systems Company, identified as Napalm, said in the statement. Both Russia and Ukraine have heavily invested in drone technology since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in early 2022, the long-running conflict becoming a crucible for cuttiing-edge drone technology.
The drone race playing out in Ukraine has been watched closely by the rest of the world, with both countries wrestling to upgrade their designs quicker than the other. While aerial drones and unmanned boats have attracted much of the attention, Kyiv has used its growing fleet of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to evacuate people from particularly dangerous areas without risking the lives of others. In April, Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps published a video showing a robot rescuing an elderly woman after her home in eastern Ukraine was destroyed.
Just weeks earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian soldiers had retaken Russian-held territory using only unmanned devices for the first time, forcing several Russian troops to offer up their surrender to robots. Ukrainian troops worked with Gurzuf Defence, a Ukrainian startup, to make sure the aerial drone wouldn't overturn or rock too much while transporting the wounded soldier, the 92nd Brigade said on Monday. The defense company said the drone used in the more than one-hour mission was a Heavy Shot Ayudag-6 that traveled 62 kilometers.
"Until now, heavy drones have delivered ammunition and cargo to the front line," Gurzuf said. The injured man is undergoing medical treatment but doesn't have life-threatening injuries, the 92nd Brigade said. The soldier had spent 500 days in a remote position alone, sustained by drone deliveries of food, water, ammunition and medicine before he was seriously wounded, Gurzuf said.
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