Under a sky of drones, robots help Ukrainian military medics
With the help of a remote-controlled robot, a Ukrainian soldier rescues one of his wounded comrades and attempts to transport him to safety, away from the front lines. But suddenly, he notices gray smoke on his screen, which is a bad sign.
"Mago," the 27-year-old's nom de guerre, knows his machine collided with a mine. He's convinced the mission failed and that his battle companion died because of him. "For five minutes, this death weighed on my conscience," he tells AFP.
But when he looks back at the screen, he sees a silhouette crawling for cover. The wounded soldier is still alive. The team must then send a second robot to complete the mission.
The proliferation of cheap but deadly drones deployed by both Russia and Ukraine has changed warfare and the way frontline medics recover the wounded on the ground.
At the start of the Russian invasion, launched in early 2022, medical personnel could rush onto the battlefield and evacuate soldiers by stretcher or vehicle. Today, this is impossible due to drones.
Olena Ivanenko recalls painful episodes in which she was unable to reach wounded soldiers less than a kilometer away. "I could hear their voices on the radio, but there was nothing I could do," the nurse laments.
The drones' "dead zone" extends 10 kilometers behind the Ukrainian front line, and any movement could be fatal, analysts say.
"When a brother or sister dies, it's over. You can't bring them back to life, but when there's a chance to save someone and you can't do it because you're too far away, it's very difficult," explains Ivanenko, who serves in the 412th Ukrainian regiment.
This powerlessness has forced the Army to be creative. The military nurse's unit frequently sends food or medicine via drones to soldiers immobilized by their injuries. It even sends syringes, remotely explaining how to use them.
Robots that assist with removal, such as those operated by "Mago," are another solution, but only qualified operators can perform these delicate missions.
“You have to be very careful, not make any sudden movements, be very alert,” explains “Krop”, a robot operator with the 5th brigade.
At a training camp in eastern Ukraine, he shows AFP the agile movements of the machines controlled by a remote control equipped with a screen.
“Krop” sends the robot through a field of sunflowers and makes it spin on itself, while another pilot plays the role of the injured person on the platform intended to transport it.
The operators' attitudes change depending on the mission, emphasizes "Bot," a pilot with the 5th Brigade. "It's someone's life. It's not a game," says the 24-year-old.
The robots are slow, which means Russian drones can easily spot them and target them if they don't explode on a mine first.
The toll of unsuccessful evacuation operations, in terms of lives lost, weighs heavily on the pilots.
“We spent half an hour punishing ourselves,” says “Mago.”
After believing he had failed in his mission to rescue a wounded soldier, he managed to move forward with a second robot. "At that moment, I was driving, and my whole body was shaking, except for the fingers holding the lever," he says.
The return trip took hours, with painful moments for the wounded soldier, including potholes, uneven terrain, and scares. "Fifteen kilometers in a shaking basket isn't very comfortable. But I got him out of there," he says.
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