This is the extraordinary moment Ukraine carried out what it said was the first ever evacuation of a wounded soldier from the frontline with a flying drone.
Ukraine’s 92nd Assault Brigade shared footage of Monday’s daring mission at an undisclosed location crowded with Russian drone activity and landmines.
An infantryman from the 30th Separate Mechanised Brigade had been injured and a heavy Russian presence made an evacuation with conventional ground vehicles impossible, they said.
Instead, the quick-thinking soldiers employed a heavy-lift hexacopter, originally meant as a bomber drone, to venture into the field and rescue the casualty, piloted by an operator from the 30th SMB.
“This is an historic event—at the very least for our unit," said Napalm, a squad leader and programmer in the Unmanned Ground Systems Company.
The 92nd Assault Brigade said in a statement that the operation had been a success and that the soldier was currently undergoing treatment and rehabilitation in a stable condition.
The evacuation was made possible through the joint efforts of the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade, the 30th Separate Mechanized Brigade, the 14th Separate Mechanized Brigade, the 10th Army Corps, and Gurzuf Defence, they said.
Last month, a Ukrainian sea drone shot and destroyed a Russian unmanned boat in what the Ukrainian navy said marked the “first-ever naval battle” between maritime drones.
The Ukrainian Sargan 3000 unmanned naval boat identified the Russian drone on the Black Sea and attacked with its powerful 12.7mm turret, the Ukrainian navy said on Telegram.
Footage shared from the Ukrainian drone showed a volley of fire hitting the other boat, which erupted with thick grey smoke before sinking. It was unclear when or exactly where the video was taken.
Ret. Gen. David Petraeus, the former head of the CIA, said earlier in October that AI military officers could be making independent decisions on the battlefield within just four years, amid growing debate over the use of the technology in war.
Petraeus told investor Finn Murphy on the Forecast2050 podcast he believed that warfare would begin to see the adoption of AI staff officers that are capable of gathering information and making decisions with little to no human input by 2030.
“We'll see this emerging in Ukraine I think by the end of this year, very likely by the end of 2026. You'll see increasing numbers of autonomous unmanned systems,” he said.
“And the reason that's so dramatic is because it now eliminates the limit that you have on the number of systems based on the number of pilots that you have.”
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