Ukraine rescued a wounded soldier from the front line using a drone, a Ukrainian army brigade said on Monday, describing the evacuation as the first of its kind. The brigade released a video showing the drone descending to the ground, before a man in combat gear grabs onto a winch on board and is lifted up. See moreResidents of Kramatorsk in Ukraine forced to flee as drone attacks intensify The brigade did not say where the evacuation took place. “The operation was a success: the wounded man was saved! He is now undergoing treatment and rehabilitation and his life is no longer in danger,” the drone unit of Ukraine’s 92nd Separate Assault Brigade said on Facebook. Read moreUkrainian drone attack in St. Petersburg kills one person, sets fire to refinery The drone’s manufacturer, Gurzuf Defense, said the man had spent almost a year and a half in a dangerous combat position and could not be rescued by conventional means. “Any attempt to reach him would have posed a mortal risk to the rescue team,” he said. The drone, an Ayudag-6 hexacopter, “took the injured man to a safer position, where he was received by colleagues who organized his subsequent evacuation to a hospital,” he added. Ukraine has long used unmanned ground vehicles to evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefield, but this was the first reported case of a drone being used for the same purpose. Read moreUkraine attacks Moscow with one of its largest drone attacks in two years. The 92nd Assault Brigade’s drone unit described the operation as a “world first.” Both Russia and Ukraine have made extensive use of drones in the four-and-a-half-year war, which began with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The extensive use of combat drones by both sides has turned the battlefield into what military analysts have described as a “death zone” where neither side has a clear advantage. (FRANCE 24 with AFP)