Kyiv
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The three hours Maksim spent being transported from the battlefield in eastern Ukraine felt like an eternity. Severely injured and soaking wet, he was trapped in a small armored capsule on wheels without a driver. He was exhausted, alone, and scared to death.
But after repeated failed evacuation attempts and 33 days spent hiding in no-man’s land with a tourniquet wrapped around his leg, he realized this was his best, and perhaps only, chance of survival.
Riding aboard Ukraine’s remote-controlled armored evacuation land drones (called “maulkas” by Ukrainians) is rapidly becoming the best evacuation method, as Russian drones laden with explosives swarm dozens of kilometers around the front lines, making traditional medical evacuations nearly impossible.
“You can’t see anything and no one knows where you’re going,” said Maksim, a soldier with the 22nd Mechanized Brigade. Like other soldiers quoted in this article, he asked that his full name be withheld for security reasons.
“I thought I wouldn’t make it in time. I thought (the drone) would crash or explode and get stuck somewhere. So I thought I’d stay there.”
His fears were not unfounded. Six unmanned vehicles previously sent for him were destroyed en route, including one that reached his position before being blown up by Russian forces.
Medical evacuation of injured soldiers always involves great risks, and rescue workers are often forced to run, ride, drive or fly to the epicenter of the battle.
But the rise of drones has made these missions even more dangerous. The kill zone (the area around the front lines where troops are most exposed) has expanded to tens of miles as drone range increases.
The widely accepted international standards for medical evacuation have been the same for decades. NATO’s military doctrine defines the 10-1-2 principle, which states that injured soldiers should receive first aid within 10 minutes of injury, receive appropriate advanced medical care within one hour, and undergo surgery within two hours.
This “golden hour” rule is credited with saving lives during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when NATO forces maintained air superiority.
But Henady, a Ukrainian medic with the 1st Independent Medical Battalion, said these best practices are being brutally rewritten in Ukraine.
“Unfortunately, drones have changed the battlefield,” he says. “It is impossible to transport the wounded to the hospital by helicopter within the golden hour. This has been the case in all previous conflicts involving the United States (and) NATO countries, and they had the financial resources. But in the current war, unfortunately, this is not possible,” he told CNN.
Evacuation of casualties by plane was never a good option for Ukraine, as Russia had controlled much of the country’s airspace since the early days of the war. But Henady said early in the war, before Moscow began deploying drones, it was still possible to quickly evacuate casualties by vehicle.
“This is becoming less common, because no matter how armored a vehicle is, carrying one wounded person could potentially become a casualty for the evacuees themselves. The more armored a vehicle is, the more it becomes a priority target (for a drone).”
Russian drone technology is now advancing so rapidly that the reality on the ground is constantly changing, leaving the Ukrainian military scrambling for solutions.
Fortunately for Maksim and others caught in a seemingly impossible situation, some of Ukraine’s best minds are on the case.
Hundreds of people have been rescued and the number is rising
The Third Army Corps Academy, nicknamed KillHouse, is the center of Ukraine’s cutting-edge drone industry. Part research and development center, part training facility, this facility is one of the places where a team of engineers, software developers, and military personnel are constantly refining Ukraine’s drone arsenal to meet the precise needs of different forces.
The Ukraine war is the first conflict in which air, sea and land drones have been deployed on a large scale, meaning teams on the ground will have to adapt as the situation unfolds. Their work constantly attracts foreign visitors, from high-level military delegations to groups of Western developers and engineers who want to see for themselves Ukraine’s latest technology.
On a recent afternoon, training was underway at the facility in a small room filled with the rattling noise of tools and motors. Students, military personnel, civilians, men and women alike, were running around building and launching different types of land-based drones, or technically called ground robotic complexes (GRCs).
While fiddling with an antenna to establish a signal, one of the students told CNN he started out as an infantryman in an airborne assault brigade but is retraining to become a land drone pilot. “Now every unit wants a GRC battalion. They sent me here to study there,” he said.
Most drones have a simple design, with wheels and a platform with a cargo basket or armored box on top. It must withstand all types of terrain and possible attacks. Some have wheels, others have tank-like tracks.
Maksim, a soldier rescued from a no-man’s land near Tretsk in eastern Ukraine in October, told CNN he heard explosions and smelled gunpowder while being brought to safety.
“It looked like someone had dropped an explosive on me from a drone. I heard it didn’t hit me, but somewhere nearby. I don’t know for sure,” he said. At one point, the evacuation drone hit a mine, damaging its left front wheel. “We couldn’t make a left turn, but we could drive on three wheels. But we made it.”
He spoke to CNN from a hospital in Ukraine. He is still recovering from the ordeal. Although he lost his leg, the amputation wound is healing well and he is in little pain.
Hundreds of these powerful machines are now deployed on the front lines, saving lives by delivering essential supplies to forward positions and evacuating injured soldiers to medical hubs.
“Drones are a consumable item, so there has to be a balance between price and quality,” one of the instructors, known as Stark, the Marvel Universe weapons maker better known as Iron Man, told CNN. Land-based drones range in price from $5,000 to more than $20,000 each.
“They are priority targets and are constantly being tracked. But the advantage of drones is that they are smaller, less obtrusive and make less noise than armored vehicles, so they are easier to hide,” he added.
Stark told CNN that 90 percent of the brigade’s logistics operations are now completed by land-based drones. Maksim was lucky to be able to board the armored capsule, but many other wounded Ukrainian soldiers have been evacuated by simply lying on top of a simple drone, essentially a remote-controlled cart, with their bodies wrapped in bulletproof blankets.
“The GRC is like Uber on the battlefield. Unit commanders tell them what they need to transport, what they need assistance with, and GRC units carry out those missions,” Stark said.
He said his brigade’s drones alone have flown some 70,000 kilometers in the past year and evacuated hundreds of people.
One of the Academy’s other instructors knows firsthand what it feels like to be rescued by a machine. The lecturer, who goes by the call sign “Historian” after his pre-war life when he was studying to become a history teacher, told CNN he was probably one of the first people to be evacuated by drone.
Dressed in military uniform and wearing dusty Adidas sneakers, one on his right foot and one on a prosthetic foot to replace his left, historians say he was injured either by a Russian attack or by an improvised explosive device. His fellow soldiers administered first aid to him and dragged him to a nearby trench, before bringing in one of the land drones to transport him to safety.
“Due to the bumpy road and the lack of suspension in the car, there was a moment when my injured left leg fell and started dragging on the ground, but my brother-in-law noticed it right away and picked me up,” he said.
Although the ride was “a little uncomfortable,” it was a much better option than waiting for evacuation in an armored vehicle, which took longer to reach the scene.
The flight took about an hour and a half, and apart from a few moments of flying drones and artillery shells, the flight went smoothly.
“There are moments when I want to run away from the car, but I just can’t do it,” the historian said with a laugh, pointing to his missing leg. It’s a joke that only hardy Ukrainian soldiers would find funny.
