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/
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.
> In asymmetric drone warfare stronger economies can nearly “costlessly” conquer less wealthy economies.
Iran vs US shows the opposite. Stronger economy is a huge vulnerability, low human life cost is a big advantage. Economy matters a lot, but if one country can allow itself to lose 80% of it's resources in the war, and another will capitulates long before 5% loss, the first will win no matter the size of the economy.
And I think this generalizes. War is basically a game of morale. Whoever's morale breaks first, loses - in both battles and wars. This is precisely why Afghanistan managed to defeat both the USSR and the USA. They will fight you to the very last man without even having a hint of morale issues. And then after they're all dead their children will do the exact same. And then their children's children. They simply will never surrender, and that makes them practically impossible to defeat. Iran is showing themselves capable of the exact same.
It's interesting to imagine a parallel WW2 where the Japanese emperor did not tell the war council to end the war, and they just continued to fight, as the council wanted. It seems that surely Japan would have lost, but the shape this would take when you have a people, and not just a leadership, unwilling to surrender is not at all clear.
Materiel isn't free! Had everyone forgotten the "cross of iron" speech from Eisenhower?
It also doesn't seem to be working all that well in the Middle East, which looks more like a standstill. Even in Ukraine the actual holding of ground is mostly manned.
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.
Wwithout knowing more details it would seem to be a lot less risk to transport wounded soldiers in those MAUL armored sarcophagus type of containers, than to be airborne and exposed to enemy fire.
There's a video on YouTube which shows a world champion shotgun shooter try to shoot down drones before they get to him. His success rate - knowing the drones are coming, ready to go with a loaded shotgun and with elite skill - is really bad. It really opens your eyes to just how scary drones on the battlefield are. You need to hit every single one of them to survive. They just need one to get through to kill you.
Bigger drones would be slower and easier to spot, but even then - if you're not ready and waiting it'll be gone before you have time to react. The only consistent solution for anti-drone warfare is automated. Or nets.
Depends on the speed and agility, at minimum 70kg body weight before accounting for the drones mean it's quite a heavy aircraft, not necessarily agile without burning the battery
The battery only has to last 5 to 10 minutes for this to be useful, because adding a second battery to drop just before picking up the wounded wouldn't be hard so loiter time wouldn't be much of an issue if they go down that route. Also multi-copters become more efficient flying in a reasonably straight line compared to high-g manoeuvrers or hovering in place.
Bullets, rockets, and anti-tank rounds aren't that big of a threat to a vehicle going from the front lines to the rear area. The threats are mines, artillery, and drones.
But you're right. Airborne things behind opposing lines are harder to destroy. Still doable, though, with missiles and drones. I guess the hope here is it's fast enough to evade drones and also that the Russians aren't going to want to risk expensive aircraft and pilots to kill a guy that might die anyway or be too disabled to return to the fight.
It's not. Ukraine roads are filled with armoured vehicles which needed only 1 hit to become roadblocks. To be functional Ukrainian army is transforming them into Mad Max like vehicle before sending to fight and they still are a little more safer because if drone pilot is skilled enough and adjust both vehicle and drone speed he might succeed in hitting weak spot. Changing direction to left or right on bumpy road when you chasing with max it's possible can be death sentence plus you must take in the equation all trash on the road with may destroy weals
In other hand you have 3 axis plus if you reduce proportion you can at any moment without adding any power dodge enemy. Skilled operator may be able to hit and this is why they added swarm of suicide drones to protect carrier
Now add 100s or 1000s wounded at the same time, some can heal, and go back out to fight, some cannot, some will die during transport. The drone might be shot down, some areas are cleared. Simple? Not at all.
Risk calculations aside, don't forget to take into account how this could impact soldier morale. Just knowing that if injured a giant flying drone will attempt to airlift you to safety, regardless of how hopeless the situation on the ground looks like probably is a huge boost to morale.
... particularly if you know the other side treats their soldiers like the Star Wars CIS treated droids - completely and utterly expendable cannon fodder.
In the situation that Ukraine is, which is a desperate lack of money, ammunition ("thanks" to the US), weapons and soldiers, anything that purely exists to lift troop morale is already worth the effort, and if it even saves only one brave defender, it is more than worth it.
".. particularly if you know the other side treats their soldiers like the Star Wars CIS treated droids - completely and utterly expendable cannon fodder."
Except in reality they largely don't. Exceptions are the prison squads and alike, but the majority of the russian army consists of volunteers whose numbers are limited and Putin had to openly declare repeatedly there will be no mass mobilisation and those who are mobilized not put to combat in Ukraine.
> Putin had to openly declare repeatedly there will be no mass mobilisation
Putin also declared he didn't want a war with Ukraine mere days before he started one [1]. You cannot believe a word that comes out of the mouth of any Russian official.
You consceeding that they dont except when they did and dont see that the after the fact 'apology' will somehow mean they wont again when they decide its worth doing like last time. Their words are worthless
> also the russian side had to learn soldiers are not expendable.
And yet they're still sending in troops with barely any ammunition worth the name. The Russian M.O. against the Ukrainian fortifications still is meatwaves.
> remember they had to bring in Korean soldiers?
And from what one can hear from the usual milblogger/OSINT/analyst crowd, the NK troops face brutal casualty rates as well [1].
For NK it's still a good deal, enough will survive the ordeal and return that they can teach their own army a bit about modern warfare.
A rah-rah attitude is great, but one should never underestimate an opponent. The reality is a stalemate with small groups occasionally moving past the front line. No meatwaves. This is true for both armies.
Well, it's a war, some people will die. But if drone saves one, that's one life goes on, at least it's very important for that individual life, people often forgot about that when they drown themselves in numbers.
And, if this method got "industrialized", they'll probably use survey drones to do a scan first before more expensive bigger drone gets deployed.
Damn, how long they been fighting now? Years, as far as I can remember. You know sometime I think human beings don't deserve anything pass the tree stick age.
The Russians target the ground vehicles with drones and artillery. From what I understand, in some areas they've been completely unable to evacuate casualties. Guys are dying from infections and wounds that could easily have been treated by people with the right expertise and equipment.
Slowly dying in no man's land vs. a chance to make it out alive makes it a fairly tempting risk to take. I can totally understand the Ukrainians trying such stunts with their wounded when the alternative wouldn't be a medivac chopper, but watching them perish in agony through the spotter drones. Even if was a 50/50 chance to crash and or be intercepted I don't think many wounded soldiers would hesitate at a chance to fly to an aide station or even proper surgical care in minutes instead of hours, days, or more likely never. Acute pain and the expectation to die otherwise shift the risk tolerance completely.
I have to assume the Israelis would also evacuate the soldier if they believed it could be done with a good enough success rate. If one wanted to follow a "no captures" approach you could send both, if they can't rescue via drone then you follow up with the muchbworse option.
That said, I personally disagree with the idea of killing your own to avoid capture.
Basically like during nam with helicopter. And many were destroyed mid flight. Plus this is PR stunt. Do OSINt how many drones needed by Ukrainian side per month. That means that many destroyed EVERY MONTH. Now imagine one of them carry wounded soldier.
Presumably less likely to get destroyed than a suicide drone, or one sent further into enemy controlled areas.
There probably aren't a lot of scenarios where it makes sense sense to pick an injured guy up with a drone, but it seems like a plausible last resort option.
Drones are not at equal risk in all missions and neither are wounded soldiers in equal need for evacuation. A long list of Americans have died in helicopter accidents while receiving medical transport but a much longer list had their lives saved by those same basic methods.
Evac drones will have a lower destruction rate than kamikaze drones per month, for obvious reasons. If I imagine a kamikaze drone carrying a wounded solder, it better be in Rambo VII because that's ridiculous.
Helicopters are orders of magnitude more heavier, expensive and difficult to operate. And they are very vulnerable to an opponent damaging the props.
Drones in contrast have much less payload and range, but they can be made extremely cheaply (a DJI Agras T100 spray drone with about 75kg payload is ~13.000 €!), more difficult to hit due to lower size, and anything above 5 arms is pretty resilient to prop damage.
You'd need at least 150-200 kg payload to account for thinks like clothes and equipment ;) but indeed, the difference with the cost of purchasing, flying and servicing the helicopter are stark.
It would be very different. Heli would be long range, small number of larger helis, very juicy targets for manpads and bigger AD.
Drones can be hidden near the front, and will carry individual soldiers plus equipment. Nobody has 20 manpads at ready, and would be funny to shoot S300 at them. They can be used for short jumps - go over the immediate front line, or over a river, or a mine field. Doubt they'll carry 200 pounds for over a few clicks - but enough to get behind the enemy.
If you are invaded you're in a war whether you like it or not. At that point there are three ways to end up with less war. Surrender, force a truce, or win.
Misleading title, and the article takes until the third paragraph to mention it was a flying drone evacuation. Without that specification, this would have merited a (2023) in the title (the year is a rough guess).
As an english-as-a-second-language speaker, I learnt quite late that the original meaning of drone is a male bee, and that the modern drone is called like that because it is a small flying thing that buzzes with their propellers. Perhaps that’s useful for others.
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[ 0.29 ms ] story [ 11.9 ms ] threadhttps://ukrspecsystems.com/blog/pd-2-uav-tested-for-organ-de...
I'd actually assumed it'd be commonplace by now, but I can't find too many stories about it.
Anyway, the point is that there is a lot of interesting/innovative going on with regards to drones in Ukraine.
In asymmetric drone warfare stronger economies can nearly “costlessly” conquer less wealthy economies.
sigh
Iran vs US shows the opposite. Stronger economy is a huge vulnerability, low human life cost is a big advantage. Economy matters a lot, but if one country can allow itself to lose 80% of it's resources in the war, and another will capitulates long before 5% loss, the first will win no matter the size of the economy.
It's interesting to imagine a parallel WW2 where the Japanese emperor did not tell the war council to end the war, and they just continued to fight, as the council wanted. It seems that surely Japan would have lost, but the shape this would take when you have a people, and not just a leadership, unwilling to surrender is not at all clear.
It also doesn't seem to be working all that well in the Middle East, which looks more like a standstill. Even in Ukraine the actual holding of ground is mostly manned.
Wwithout knowing more details it would seem to be a lot less risk to transport wounded soldiers in those MAUL armored sarcophagus type of containers, than to be airborne and exposed to enemy fire.
Bigger drones would be slower and easier to spot, but even then - if you're not ready and waiting it'll be gone before you have time to react. The only consistent solution for anti-drone warfare is automated. Or nets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mORdXxZ2uKU
But you're right. Airborne things behind opposing lines are harder to destroy. Still doable, though, with missiles and drones. I guess the hope here is it's fast enough to evade drones and also that the Russians aren't going to want to risk expensive aircraft and pilots to kill a guy that might die anyway or be too disabled to return to the fight.
> “Due to intense enemy drone activity and the presence of landmines, evacuation using conventional unmanned ground vehicles was impossible,”
In other hand you have 3 axis plus if you reduce proportion you can at any moment without adding any power dodge enemy. Skilled operator may be able to hit and this is why they added swarm of suicide drones to protect carrier
Simple. Soldier left as is will survive with probability=0. UAV medevac has probability of success strictly > 0.
In the situation that Ukraine is, which is a desperate lack of money, ammunition ("thanks" to the US), weapons and soldiers, anything that purely exists to lift troop morale is already worth the effort, and if it even saves only one brave defender, it is more than worth it.
Except in reality they largely don't. Exceptions are the prison squads and alike, but the majority of the russian army consists of volunteers whose numbers are limited and Putin had to openly declare repeatedly there will be no mass mobilisation and those who are mobilized not put to combat in Ukraine.
Putin also declared he didn't want a war with Ukraine mere days before he started one [1]. You cannot believe a word that comes out of the mouth of any Russian official.
[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60392259
And yet they're still sending in troops with barely any ammunition worth the name. The Russian M.O. against the Ukrainian fortifications still is meatwaves.
> remember they had to bring in Korean soldiers?
And from what one can hear from the usual milblogger/OSINT/analyst crowd, the NK troops face brutal casualty rates as well [1].
For NK it's still a good deal, enough will survive the ordeal and return that they can teach their own army a bit about modern warfare.
[1] https://kyivindependent.com/north-korean-troops-took-over-7-...
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/08/20/russia-and-ukraine-a...
And, if this method got "industrialized", they'll probably use survey drones to do a scan first before more expensive bigger drone gets deployed.
Damn, how long they been fighting now? Years, as far as I can remember. You know sometime I think human beings don't deserve anything pass the tree stick age.
It becomes a whole lot more complicated if you have other options and have to implement triage.
Probability of death = 1 vs probability of death < 1.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive
That said, I personally disagree with the idea of killing your own to avoid capture.
However Israel has and does evacuate soldiers.
There probably aren't a lot of scenarios where it makes sense sense to pick an injured guy up with a drone, but it seems like a plausible last resort option.
It is a story with strong PR value.
So far the only drone carried airborne were Ground grone drops on the back of the enemy, some with grenade launcher drones.
Drones in contrast have much less payload and range, but they can be made extremely cheaply (a DJI Agras T100 spray drone with about 75kg payload is ~13.000 €!), more difficult to hit due to lower size, and anything above 5 arms is pretty resilient to prop damage.
Drones can be hidden near the front, and will carry individual soldiers plus equipment. Nobody has 20 manpads at ready, and would be funny to shoot S300 at them. They can be used for short jumps - go over the immediate front line, or over a river, or a mine field. Doubt they'll carry 200 pounds for over a few clicks - but enough to get behind the enemy.
The soldier self amputated his left leg using a knife. He also survived 491 days on the front line. Brutal. This guy is a real-life Rambo.
More info about soldier's experience here: https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/surrounded-by-russi...Applying this to war though just means more war
Russia must be completely cut off from the rest of the world financially until they leave Ukraine alone
But unfortunately that's never going to happen, at least not for the next 800 days
* https://www.reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/comments/j6z8eh
Can you explain why?
I agree that Russia should be further isolated, but with China and India close by, that's not possible.
“Drone” is well associated with flying in common language.