Ukraine claims first drone evacuation of wounded soldier (nbcnews.com)

153 pointsby yzydserd12 hours ago118 comments

laughing_man 2 hours ago

They've been doing drone evacuations for years. What makes this different is the drone is flying.

1970-01-01 9 hours ago

If they can pull them out, they can also drop fresh ones down.

Not sure if that is better than just using a helicopter however.

traceroute66 8 hours ago

> Not sure if that is better than just using a helicopter however.

Anyone who has done first responder training should have had it drilled into their skulls to remember the number one rule .... "do not add yourself to the injury list".

If you're operating in a war-zone its kind of the same thing. Send in a helicopter to drop off one or more guys and you are also sending in bare minimum of one extra person but realistically almost certainly three extra people (two at the front and one at the back to watch the people jumping out).

Also drones are probably somewhat cheaper than helicopters. Both to buy and to operate.

pletnes 8 hours ago

Can not see the drone and shoot it down using thermal camera or ir seeking missile

esseph 41 minutes ago

You can definitely see the drone and person with thermals, and can engage with thermal or electro optical tracking.

zardo 8 hours ago

Probably harder to hit six single-soldier carrying drones than one helicopter.

newsclues 4 hours ago

A lot of the wounded soldiers that are getting these heroic evacuations have lost weight, months of combat and limited nutrition, blood and limb loss.

Fresh soldiers, with a combat load, might be too heavy. Or simply risky

wombat-man 4 hours ago

You could have separate drones bring the gear.

andrewflnr 3 hours ago

If you weren't improvising with a bomber, you could also just build a slightly larger drone.

maxdo 3 hours ago

Because it's not America with Vietnam/ Iraq war mindset.

Helicopters are extremely vulnerable for drone interceptors. With Recent developments, the an interceptor can fly up to 600 km/h. It can also wait for you on the balloon.

Overall, piloted aviation, it's almost a dead end with all the recent capabilities.

nradov 3 hours ago

Piloted aviation is still very much alive. US and Israeli 5th generation aircraft took minimal losses in the recent strikes on Iran despite some fairly capable defenses. Drone capabilities will continue to improve but for now the autonomous flight control software is incapable of complex, dynamic missions and remote piloting doesn't work in a hostile EW environment. We'll increasingly see manned/unmanned teaming with the drones pushing forward while the manned aircraft trail behind, but close enough to exercise tight control.

jefftk an hour ago

> for now the autonomous flight control software is incapable of complex, dynamic missions

I give it 1-2y.

maxdo 28 minutes ago

Missions in Ukraine Russia achive same results for 1000 times cheaper. Real war nowadays is cheap and mass produced.

As an example, Russia hits with drones a specific parts of the bridge using mesh network of ER resistant drones . Ukraine is sending drones for 2000 miles deep into Russian territory. F-35 plus payload is not capable of that .

What is the point of sending f-35 if Ukraine can send 5 cheap rockets? And deliver 2-3 tones of payload over the most sophisticated air protection in the world ?

nradov 19 minutes ago

Those cheap drones and missiles are only effective against relatively soft, static targets. As I already explained above, manned aircraft are still the only platforms capable of executing critical missions in complex, dynamic environments. Maybe that will change in a few years but not today.

Ukraine and Russia are both second-rate powers making do with what they can manage because they're too poor to afford anything better. The systems that sort of work in Eastern Europe likely won't be effective between the USA and China around the First Island Chain. (Let's hope we don't have to find out for sure.)

laughing_man 2 hours ago

>Helicopters are extremely vulnerable for drone interceptors.

Do we have evidence even a single helicopter has been shot down by a drone?

rajamaka 2 hours ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSbmBpJSrYI

LarsAlereon an hour ago

And just to be clear, there were previous videos of interceptions and near interceptions that just didn't look so photogenic so weren't widely distributed. This video was not where things changed.

timcobb an hour ago

Do we have evidence there's even a war going on there?! I've never seen a single video, but they keep shipping money and weapons over there.

jacquesm 40 minutes ago

Multiple and two in the last month.

morkalork an hour ago

Piloted aviation is alive and well in Russia/Ukraine for missle trucks lobbing glide bombs from BVR

xmcp123 an hour ago

There’s no way anyone is getting a helicopter anywhere near that front line.

Transporting wounded soldiers has become a significant problem in recent years.

vzaliva 9 hours ago

It reaffirms that Ukrainians are:

1. very advanced with drones 2. caring about their soldiers

Disclaimer: I am a proud Ukrainian.

AndrewKemendo 2 hours ago

The stuff the front line hackers are doing is incredibly impressive

expedition32 3 hours ago

I hope in the future all wars are fought by drones. Just don't make them unstoppable like in that Horizon videogame.

bamboozled 3 hours ago

I hope there are no future wars.

The point of war is to kill people.

Aeolun 3 hours ago

The point of war is enforcing your will through violence. You can skip the violence, but then bullies would essentially be unrestricted.

bamboozled 3 hours ago

Do you think there is a difference between killing people and violence ?

pixl97 3 hours ago

You can have violence without killing people, for example in torture the goal is generally not to kill the recipient.

And if a doctor has a surgery that goes bad and the patient died, they may have killed someone, but there was no violence.

bamboozled 2 hours ago

But you can't have killing without violence.

esseph 38 minutes ago

I guess if you get extremely broad with the term but starvation isn't often classified as violence.

swat535 3 hours ago

"War" for the sake of "war" is pointless. It should be tied to a political objective for some kind of gain.

Ideally, it would be the last resort in limited capacity when diplomacy fails.

Otherwise you're unleashing horrors on humanity.

megous 2 hours ago

There's no single point to war. It can be anything from enjoying the destruction and killing and torture and lack of rules, to "retribution" (for people who are into thinking of other people in terms of arbitrarily and vaguely defined groups), though creating chaos to get political advantage, to distraction from political issues, or really whatever...

halfmatthalfcat 3 hours ago

That's not necessarily true. The point of war is to force control. You can force control without killing people. Economically, psychologically, digitally, etc. Killing people is one of the ways but not the only way to wage war.

Dylan16807 3 hours ago

> The point of war is to kill people.

You could have a war that's entirely based around infrastructure damage, and you could warn people away from incoming attacks.

krashidov 3 hours ago

ah right, good point. Let's have more wars then.

Dylan16807 2 hours ago

Do you think that's what I was arguing?

Well I'll quote the sentence to make it clearer, I guess.

megous 2 hours ago

Never happened.

Dylan16807 2 hours ago

Even if it hasn't happened, it would still be a relatively normal war if it happened.

The point of wars usually isn't death.

8note an hour ago

the point of war is to get past bargaining frictions and make it clear what a mutually acceptable settlement looks like

bickfordb 3 hours ago

I hope not. This looks like a nightmare world constrained only by basic manufacturing.

schiffern 20 minutes ago

World War I called. It wants its "horror at the concept of industrialized warfare" back.

tantalor 2 hours ago

The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In any case, most actual fighting will be done by small robots, and as you go forth today remember your duty is clear: to build and maintain those robots.

skeledrew 8 hours ago

NGL, reading this gave me the feels...

Also, next wartime invention: air mines.

andrewflnr 3 hours ago

Loitering munitions are already a thing. You just need to combine that concept with interceptor drones. Actually I'm not sure autonomous interceptors are a thing yet, so that might be the blocker.

esseph 37 minutes ago

600km/h autonomous interceptors are around...

collingreen 3 hours ago

This is a thing already

dgudkov 4 hours ago

Another Ukrainian innovation using drones: transporting transplant organs.

https://ukrspecsystems.com/blog/pd-2-uav-tested-for-organ-de...

Cpoll 4 hours ago

I think this has been done before, as early as 2022, according to this article: https://globalnews.ca/news/8583562/drone-delivery-organ-tran...

I'd actually assumed it'd be commonplace by now, but I can't find too many stories about it.

atlasunshrugged 4 hours ago

Not exactly the same but Zipline has been transporting medical supplies in Africa for almost a decade (in the US I think they're mostly focused on food delivery which is more profitable) https://time.com/5295821/ziplines-drones-are-saving-lives/

dgudkov 3 hours ago

To be precise, innovation doesn't mean invention. I never claimed that Ukraine was the first to invent organ delivery, but it definitely keeps innovating in this field.

Anyway, the point is that there is a lot of interesting/innovative going on with regards to drones in Ukraine.

walrus01 8 hours ago

The German company Avilus has shown a medevac drone, I don't know if it's been used to transport a live human (even uninjured) for a test yet.

https://www.xponential-europe.com/en/Media_News/Magazine/Art...

https://www.google.com/search?num=10&client=firefox-b-d&hs=p...

egorfine 9 hours ago

As a Ukrainian, I really wish my country could innovate in areas other than evacuation of wounded people from our own soil.

Ancalagon 9 hours ago

is this not a good innovation?

Y-bar 9 hours ago

It is a good innovation in the same way a shield is a good innovation. Perhaps people do not always want to innovate in the area of war, but instead doing something else, but they are forced to innovate like this.

8note 8 hours ago

it also feels like it could be a replacement to the electric scooter at some point?

drone pickup is basically a jet pack

egorfine 5 hours ago

It's a good innovation.

The whole situation that required that innovation is not.

majorchord 9 hours ago

They are many... you should be proud. I am.

https://ukraine.ua/invest-trade/ukrainian-inventions-that-ch...

And the recent drone tech is saving many lives and lots of money.

dgunay 9 hours ago

Doesn't this have potential applications in disaster relief?

fhdkweig 8 hours ago

https://inkorr.com/en/litna-zinka-v-kostantinivci-napisala-v...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ukrainian+woman+writes+i+ask+for+b...

A woman wrote "I ask for bread" in the snow in front of her house. A passing drone photographed it. This led to a later mission to air drop food to her.

barbazoo 9 hours ago

From outside it seems that Ukraine is not really given a choice right now but to defend itself. I wish for a soon end to the war so your beautiful country can prosper again and your people can start healing.

squidbeak 8 hours ago

I think the poster's point was, "Imagine what we could be applying our ingenuity to if the bastards invading us would only piss off."

mrheosuper an hour ago

Could you be elaborating more? What is better than evacuating the injured ?

jacquesm 32 minutes ago

Indeed. Ukraine is - and always was - a tech and innovation powerhouse and it is very sad to see the continued degree of distraction caused by russia. Let's hope the midterms will at least muzzle trump to the point that the tide will turn. I can't believe it is almost 5 years now. Very frustrating.

tokai 9 hours ago

Was it two years ago, or even longer, that Akhmat troops claimed Ukrainian drones tried to abduct their men in the field? Who knows, it might end up actually happen one day. Wild.

gaiagraphia 9 hours ago

Pretty horrifying prospect really. Imagine the buzzing of a huge drone descending upon you from nowhere, before it just grabs you with its metal arms, and whisks you away into the sky, lol.

Guess it's better than dropping nades on top of you, maybe :/

doubled112 8 hours ago

It wouldn't need to drop grenades. It could pick you up, fly high enough, and drop you to your death. Never runs out of ammo, just batteries.

This is pretty horrifying. Bonus points if you hit somebody on the way down?

leni536 8 hours ago

Bullets are probably more economical.

nostrademons 7 hours ago

If a drone wanted to kill you, it would use a bullet. Cheapest and easiest way, with the least risk to the drone.

The extraction case would only be for high-value targets (enemy military/economic/political leaders), where having them alive would give leverage on having them order their organizations to do something useful for the drone owner.

toss1 8 hours ago

for the Russian soldiers, it would certainly be a better fate than remaining on the field for a few more tens of minutes before they die (on average). AFAICT, they are treated better in Ukrainian POW camps than in the Russian deployed positions

senderista 8 hours ago

Depends.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_of_Russian_soldiers_in...

toss1 7 hours ago

Right, highlight the one incident on the Ukrainian side vs the standard war-crimes treatment by the Russians, and yes, there are also a number of incidents during capture on the both sides.

Also note the mismatch in POWs died in captivity returned by Ukraine (14) vs by Russia (>1000, as of [0]).

And note the overall condition of Russian soldiers returned is well-fed, and Ukrainians returned are barely walking.

It has been some 400 years since Cardinal Richelieu said "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." [1] We can always find an exception to condemn someone.

Our task is instead to try to get a fair grasp on what is happening. Highlighting the exceptional event out of context is not helpful

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_war_in_the_Russo-...

[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu

edit: completed last paragraph; accidentally posted incomplete

senderista 6 hours ago

I think ideologically extreme volunteers on either side are more likely to commit war crimes than regular troops. The incident I linked above was perpetrated by the Kraken Battalion, which is basically the Kharkiv chapter of the neo-Nazi Azov Regiment (formerly based in Mariupol). Similarly, the horrific video of the castration/execution of a Ukrainian POW seemed to be related to Rusich, the Russian neo-Nazi volunteer unit.

senderista 6 hours ago

There are actually quite a few more documented incidents of POW abuse on the Ukrainian side than the one I linked to, but I think I would agree that there's probably more on the Russian side. I don't consider the amount of POW abuse on the Ukrainian side to be negligible though, nor would I expect it to be given how bitter this war is.

toss1 5 hours ago

Yes, I'm sure it is not negligible, since it never is, even with the best-disciplined military. Adrenalin runs pretty high when people are trying their best to kill you and all your family, friends, and countrymen.

But we must also be sure to balance when a country such as Ukraine tries to uphold a moral standard as policy, and when they fail, prosecutes the offenders, vs a country like Russia which makes a standard practice of war crimes.

senderista 5 hours ago

Dude, the guys in the Tornado Battalion, who were convicted of absolutely horrifying sexual violence and other atrocities during the 2014 war, were pardoned and released from prison shortly after the war started. What kind of signal was that supposed to send?

toss1 2 hours ago

Not great, but are you equating the turmoil right after Yanukovych was deposed, Crimea was invaded and occupied by Russia, and there were serial interim governments with a the more stable govt that came after?

Again, is this a horrible exception, or is it the standard way they operate. For UKR it is the exception, for Russia, it is the way they operate, right up to human safari FPV drone hunting and killing of civilians posted on social media by the perpetrators.

senderista an hour ago

Sorry I wasn't clear, the crimes happened in the 2014 war, the pardon was in 2022 a few months after Russia attacked IIRC.

fellowniusmonk 6 hours ago

A net shooting drone that pops an expanding weather balloon would get anyone you need off the ground and then plenty of time to collect then while they are floating around

macintux 8 hours ago

Active discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50155237

helterskelter2 8 hours ago

[flagged]

ahartmetz 8 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kompromat

>Use of kompromat has been common in the politics of Russia[7] and other post-Soviet states

Surely they wouldn't do the things that they usually do with Trump, who visited Russia in 1987 upon invitation by, more or less clearly, the KGB?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...

owebmaster an hour ago

Do you really think there's anything Trump is afraid of any secret that could be worse than what we already no? There's not. The idea that he's manipulated by Russia is just stupid.

usefulcat 8 hours ago

> even Republicans are beginning to wonder what dirt Putin has on Trump.

What dirt could they possibly have on him that would actually matter to the voters that voted for him last time?

Not trolling or rhetorical; that's a completely sincere question. Even if something "bad" were to surface, his supporters would simply deny it and/or ignore it, same as they've done for all the other things he's done that are already known.

You can pretty much divide American voters into two camps right now: the ones who loathe him and the ones who DGAF (non-voting voters being in the latter category).

helterskelter2 8 hours ago

> What dirt could they possibly have on him that would actually matter to the voters that voted for him last time?

Some segment will always deny any dirt that comes out but I think most would become fairly adverse to him if, say, conclusive evidence of child sexual abuse surfaced.

apercu 8 hours ago

I wish “even Republicans” but that party stands for nothing any more, it isn’t even conservative. It’s the most bizarre and morally bankrupt thing I’ve seen in American politics and I’ve been paying attention since the 80s.

tomhow 8 hours ago

Please don't post political/ideological rhetoric on HN. It doesn't matter how correct your position is or how correct you feel it is; it only leads to back and forth arguments between people on opposing sides, and that's just what we're trying to avoid. Please aim for curious conversation at all times here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50156201 and marked it off topic.

EA-3167 4 hours ago

Setting aside the politics and the personalities, if we focus on the technology and the lessons in how to produce, iterate, and deploy I think there's enormous value in looking at what Ukraine has to offer from a tactical and strategic standpoint. It's a fact that countries and organizations are rushing to benefit from that aspect of this war, from NATO states to organized crime. Unless we imagine that data from this war isn't being actively pursued by any party that thinks they have the ability to adapt their local conflicts to a "new way of fighting", it's a matter of intense intellectual curiosity.

Doubly so when we recall that drones and ML are inextricably linked on the modern battlefield, and the technology we routinely discuss here is already being used in kill chains, ISR, SAR, and it's evolving on a weekly basis.

tomhow 3 hours ago

Sure, and there's a place for discussion about that (though whether HN can host such a discussion without it spiraling into a hellish flamewar is not something we can be confident about).

That aside, in this context the issue is that the comment very much didn't set aside the politics and the personalities.

EA-3167 3 hours ago

Of course, I was just trying to extract a bit of good from the bad.

lawn 8 hours ago

No need for dirt. Putin simply funnels money to Trump and that's enough.

postsantum 2 hours ago

back to reddit kind sir