Ukraine's military has carried out a groundbreaking medical evacuation using an aerial drone, marking a world-first for the country.
What happened
A wounded soldier, Konstantyn Vlasenko, was trapped on the front line for almost 500 days due to dense mining and heavy Russian drone activity. He was reportedly wounded by a Russian drone earlier this year and had to perform partial self-amputations on both legs while waiting for rescue.
A Ukrainian-made Gurzuf Defence heavy hexacopter, originally designed as an attack drone, was modified to carry a person and used for the rescue operation. The drone flew almost 40 miles, with Ukrainian units using other drones to distract the Russian military, and the actual rescue took about an hour and 15 minutes.
The complex operation involved four different Ukrainian brigades and took seven days to prepare. According to Pavlo Feldbloom, co-founder of Gurzuf Defence, the company's drone was not designed exclusively for evacuation but was capable of carrying out rescue missions due to its heavy-duty and modular design.
Vlasenko described his evacuation flight as calm and expressed relief at being back on friendly ground. The successful evacuation demonstrates Ukraine's innovative use of drone technology in its military operations.
