For the first time in history, a wounded soldier was evacuated via a drone
He waited for half a year to be evacuated – due to severe injuries, his legs had to be amputated.
For the first time in history, a wounded soldier was evacuated using a drone
For the first time in history, the Armed Forces of Ukraine successfully evacuated a wounded serviceman from the frontline using a drone.
Konstantin Vlasenko served in the Kupyansk direction of the Kharkiv region in May 2025. He and his comrade, nicknamed Baski, were holding a position in a trench on the frontline. Food and ammunition were delivered to them via drone.
In the autumn of 2025, the time came for their rotation, but the two fighters who set off to replace them were killed before reaching the position. After that, another two fighters sent to retrieve the bodies were also killed. Vlasenko recounted that at that moment, he began to think that "it would be impossible to get out of here alive."
In mid-February, after 10 months in the trench, Vlasenko and Baski were forced to leave their position because the trench flooded, and they moved into a destroyed school building. However, when they went outside to collect food and clothes dropped by a drone, a Russian reconnaissance drone spotted them. Soon after, another drone flew in and struck their position, killing Baski, who turned 50 that day.
During the explosion, Vlasenko's left foot was crushed, and his right leg was broken and twisted backward. He managed to crawl and find shelter for himself — a small pit measuring approximately 80 by 60 centimeters under a metal boiler used to heat the school.
According to Vlasenko's account, his left leg gradually "began to rot," and the bone in the shin of his right leg was sticking out — so he decided to cut off both of his legs. "I had to amputate them because I was just dragging them behind me anyway. The bone was protruding more and more," he said.
He could not be picked up by an armored vehicle due to enemy drones, so they initially tried to evacuate him using a ground-based robotic platform — but Russian drones destroyed two such devices before they could reach Vlasenko.