Artem Lytvyn, a 25-year-old soldier of the Ukrainian army, found himself in the middle of hell. While on patrol in the north-eastern region of Kharkov, just a few kilometers from the Russian border, he hit a mine. The explosion deprived him of part of his right leg. He and his injured friend were evacuated to nearby bushes. Unfortunately, his companion did not survive.
Evacuating victims from the front of the Russian war in Ukraine is extremely difficult. In the five years since Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion, the area has become a heavily policed and ever-expanding "death zone." Constant drone attacks make even armored vehicles impossible to use. Soldiers are often forced to spend months in the trenches with no rotation.
Earlier evacuation attempts failed
Members of Lytvyn's brigade tried to evacuate him. They sent in a remote-controlled land robot to deliver supplies and transport the injured, but it and three other robots got stuck. The terrain was unfavorable: rivers, muddy fields, forest. A 10-person group of stretcher bearers set out to retrieve the soldier, but after five days they covered only 11 km - half the distance to the place where Lytvyn lay.
I felt really bad. I couldn't eat or sleep. I slept one night in eight days, the soldier told the British daily "Guardian". The boys dropped me painkillers, cigarettes and food - oatmeal and stewed meat - with drones - he recalled.
“They said they were sending a huge bird.”
Everything changed when the 25-year-old heard information on his radio station. “They told me they were sending a huge bird,” he said. "Bird", or StarGate, is a gigantic drone capable of carrying a payload of 150 kg. Produced by the Ukrainian company SkyFall, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is equipped with a coffin-like capsule suspended under six powerful black rotor blades.
The first such rescue operation
A rescue operation using this type of purpose-built evacuation vehicle has never been attempted before. One of the pilots on the unmanned mission, Andriy, described it as complicated and risky.
The StarGate drone is large and eye-catching. It could have easily become a target for Russian Rubicon drones, which could have shot it down with smaller unmanned aerial vehicles or simply blocked it so it fell to the ground.
Andriy said he and his colleagues from the 475th Assault Regiment (also known as Code 9.2) began planning a route. The drone was equipped with an artificial intelligence-based navigation module, so it could continue to fly along a designated route even if its GPS system was disrupted - at least in theory.
"My biggest fear was being shot down"
Eight days after he lost his foot, at 3:00 a.m. on October 21, Artyom heard a faint sound in the distance. Soon the drone landed next to him. The next minutes would decide whether he lived or died. Remarkable footage from the drone's onboard camera shows Lytvyn crawling out of hiding, pushing off with his arms and left leg.
I got into the capsule. I lit a cigarette and closed the hatch. That was it - I looked at the horizon and took off. "I left my radio and my assault rifle," he said. At that moment I felt happy and excited, he added. The drone flew low over the night landscape. I wasn't worried about a technical failure. "I was most afraid of being shot down," he recalls.
Twenty minutes later, the StarGate drone landed in the clearing. Ukrainian soldiers emerged from the darkness and carried Lytvyn to a small basement. They stripped off his uniform and poured hydrogen peroxide on his leg to kill the worms - a common problem with untreated wounds on the battlefield. The soldier had previously cut off parts of his foot with a knife. The treatment didn't help. The worms were still there. There were plenty of them, Lytwyn said.
A few hours later, around noon, an armored Humvee pulled up and took him to an ambulance that took him to the operating room at a hospital in Kharkov. There, surgeons transfused Lytvyn's blood and amputated his right leg at the knee. Then he was transferred to a military hospital in Lviv.
"I'd like to fly again"
What happened to me is a miracle. I soared into the sky, Lytvyn said. Traveling with StarGate is better than traveling with a land robot. The ground robot moves slowly and throws you around like a washing machine. If you hurt yourself, it can be painful, he said.
"The flight was great. I would like to fly again. Of course not in this situation, but I would just like to try. We need to continue to develop this system," he said.
For now, the 25-year-old plans to spend as much time as possible with his 7-year-old daughter Maja.
Last month, another wounded soldier, 49-year-old Kostiantyn Vlasenko, became the first to be transported from the front by drone after 491 days on duty. It was a different drone than the one from StarGate, and Vlasenko was hanging from a harness during its journey.
Plan - one thousand StarGate drones per month
SkyFall is just one of many Ukrainian defense technology companies. It also produces heavy bombers, medium-range strike drones and a fast interceptor that can ram Russian unmanned jets terrorizing Kiev and other cities.
