Ukraine claims world's first drone medical evacuation.

 

Screencap of the medical evacuation. NBC News/Ukrainian handout.

Ukraine has conducted the first known medical drone evacuation. NBC News. A video was released showing a wounded soldier from Ukraine's 92nd Separate Assault Brigade strapping himself into a harness and then being evacuated by a heavy duty hexacopter bomber drone. Ukrainian forces resorted to the new evacuation method due to the battlefield being heavily mined and large Russian drone activity. The Russia-Ukraine war has launched advances in drone technology and countermeasures. 

My Comment:

A rare good story from the Russia-Ukraine war and one that will likely be repeated frequently in the future, and not just by folks involved in the conflict. This is an advance that will likely save soldiers and may even have civilian applications. In short, it's actually pretty good news.

First of all though, we should note that this has some pretty obvious limitations. Obviously, the evacuee has to either be conscious and capable of strapping themselves in, or have someone with them that can do it for them. Obviously, this would also be an evacuation of last resort, given the obvious danger of the drone failing or the straps not being attached correctly. If a failure happens the evacuee could be further injured, or more likely, killed by falling. 

With that out of the way, this could lead to a lot of lives being saved on the battlefields of Ukraine, especially if the Russians adapt the technique as well. Given the dominance of drones and the use of minefields, evacuation of wounded soldiers has been extremely difficult. Traditional evacuation methods, like helicopters and wheeled and/or tracked vehicles are extremely vulnerable in the modern battlefield and put a lot of people at risk. Sending an expendable drone limits the risk and can get to places that vehicles can't get to. Sure, there is a chance that the drone could be destroyed by an enemy drone as well, but at least in that case, you only lose one person, not a whole medical team and a driver or pilot. 

This is obviously very useful in Ukraine. In both the static trench fights and the more mobile small unit actions that are dominating the war, soldiers are often cut off and without much support. A drone like this can get to those men if they get wounded and evacuate them successfully. 

It's also possible that similar drones could be used some day for civilian search and rescue missions. These drones could potentially reach places that helicopters could not reach. Again, it would be a method only suited for the last resort, but it could be used to evacuate people who could not otherwise be saved. It would likely be several years before the technology advances to the point it could be used in civilian rescues, but it does look like this might be the future. 

There is a darker side of this as well. The other possibility is that fully armed soldiers could some day in the future use these heavy drones as an alternate way to launch airborne assaults. Much like Hamas used paragliders to launch the October 7th attack, future terror groups or even armies could use these kinds of drones for the same thing.