Yet another Hacker News

Ukraine claims first drone evacuation of wounded soldier

84 points yzydserd 9 hours ago 71 comments

egorfine 6 hours ago | parent

As a Ukrainian, I really wish my country could innovate in areas other than evacuation of wounded people from our own soil.

Ancalagon 6 hours ago | parent

is this not a good innovation?

Y-bar 5 hours ago | parent

It is a good innovation in the same way a shield is a good innovation. Perhaps people do not always want to innovate in the area of war, but instead doing something else, but they are forced to innovate like this.

8note 5 hours ago | parent

it also feels like it could be a replacement to the electric scooter at some point?

drone pickup is basically a jet pack

egorfine 2 hours ago | parent

It's a good innovation.

The whole situation that required that innovation is not.

majorchord 6 hours ago | parent

They are many... you should be proud. I am.

https://ukraine.ua/invest-trade/ukrainian-inventions-that-ch...

And the recent drone tech is saving many lives and lots of money.

dgunay 6 hours ago | parent

Doesn't this have potential applications in disaster relief?

fhdkweig 4 hours ago | parent

https://inkorr.com/en/litna-zinka-v-kostantinivci-napisala-v...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ukrainian+woman+writes+i+ask+for+b...

A woman wrote "I ask for bread" in the snow in front of her house. A passing drone photographed it. This led to a later mission to air drop food to her.

barbazoo 5 hours ago | parent

From outside it seems that Ukraine is not really given a choice right now but to defend itself. I wish for a soon end to the war so your beautiful country can prosper again and your people can start healing.

squidbeak 4 hours ago | parent

I think the poster's point was, "Imagine what we could be applying our ingenuity to if the bastards invading us would only piss off."

tokai 6 hours ago | parent

Was it two years ago, or even longer, that Akhmat troops claimed Ukrainian drones tried to abduct their men in the field? Who knows, it might end up actually happen one day. Wild.

gaiagraphia 6 hours ago | parent

Pretty horrifying prospect really. Imagine the buzzing of a huge drone descending upon you from nowhere, before it just grabs you with its metal arms, and whisks you away into the sky, lol.

Guess it's better than dropping nades on top of you, maybe :/

doubled112 5 hours ago | parent

It wouldn't need to drop grenades. It could pick you up, fly high enough, and drop you to your death. Never runs out of ammo, just batteries.

This is pretty horrifying. Bonus points if you hit somebody on the way down?

leni536 5 hours ago | parent

Bullets are probably more economical.

nostrademons 4 hours ago | parent

If a drone wanted to kill you, it would use a bullet. Cheapest and easiest way, with the least risk to the drone.

The extraction case would only be for high-value targets (enemy military/economic/political leaders), where having them alive would give leverage on having them order their organizations to do something useful for the drone owner.

toss1 5 hours ago | parent

for the Russian soldiers, it would certainly be a better fate than remaining on the field for a few more tens of minutes before they die (on average). AFAICT, they are treated better in Ukrainian POW camps than in the Russian deployed positions

senderista 4 hours ago | parent

Depends.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_of_Russian_soldiers_in...

toss1 4 hours ago | parent

Right, highlight the one incident on the Ukrainian side vs the standard war-crimes treatment by the Russians, and yes, there are also a number of incidents during capture on the both sides.

Also note the mismatch in POWs died in captivity returned by Ukraine (14) vs by Russia (>1000, as of [0]).

And note the overall condition of Russian soldiers returned is well-fed, and Ukrainians returned are barely walking.

It has been some 400 years since Cardinal Richelieu said "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." [1] We can always find an exception to condemn someone.

Our task is instead to try to get a fair grasp on what is happening. Highlighting the exceptional event out of context is not helpful

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_war_in_the_Russo-...

[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu

edit: completed last paragraph; accidentally posted incomplete

senderista 3 hours ago | parent

I think ideologically extreme volunteers on either side are more likely to commit war crimes than regular troops. The incident I linked above was perpetrated by the Kraken Battalion, which is basically the Kharkiv chapter of the neo-Nazi Azov Regiment (formerly based in Mariupol). Similarly, the horrific video of the castration/execution of a Ukrainian POW seemed to be related to Rusich, the Russian neo-Nazi volunteer unit.

senderista 3 hours ago | parent

There are actually quite a few more documented incidents of POW abuse on the Ukrainian side than the one I linked to, but I think I would agree that there's probably more on the Russian side. I don't consider the amount of POW abuse on the Ukrainian side to be negligible though, nor would I expect it to be given how bitter this war is.

toss1 2 hours ago | parent

Yes, I'm sure it is not negligible, since it never is, even with the best-disciplined military. Adrenalin runs pretty high when people are trying their best to kill you and all your family, friends, and countrymen.

But we must also be sure to balance when a country such as Ukraine tries to uphold a moral standard as policy, and when they fail, prosecutes the offenders, vs a country like Russia which makes a standard practice of war crimes.

senderista 1 hour ago | parent

Dude, the guys in the Tornado Battalion, who were convicted of absolutely horrifying sexual violence and other atrocities during the 2014 war, were pardoned and released from prison shortly after the war started. What kind of signal was that supposed to send?

fellowniusmonk 3 hours ago | parent

A net shooting drone that pops an expanding weather balloon would get anyone you need off the ground and then plenty of time to collect then while they are floating around

1970-01-01 6 hours ago | parent

If they can pull them out, they can also drop fresh ones down.

Not sure if that is better than just using a helicopter however.

traceroute66 5 hours ago | parent

> Not sure if that is better than just using a helicopter however.

Anyone who has done first responder training should have had it drilled into their skulls to remember the number one rule .... "do not add yourself to the injury list".

If you're operating in a war-zone its kind of the same thing. Send in a helicopter to drop off one or more guys and you are also sending in bare minimum of one extra person but realistically almost certainly three extra people (two at the front and one at the back to watch the people jumping out).

Also drones are probably somewhat cheaper than helicopters. Both to buy and to operate.

pletnes 5 hours ago | parent

Can not see the drone and shoot it down using thermal camera or ir seeking missile

zardo 5 hours ago | parent

Probably harder to hit six single-soldier carrying drones than one helicopter.

newsclues 55 minutes ago | parent

A lot of the wounded soldiers that are getting these heroic evacuations have lost weight, months of combat and limited nutrition, blood and limb loss.

Fresh soldiers, with a combat load, might be too heavy. Or simply risky

wombat-man 50 minutes ago | parent

You could have separate drones bring the gear.

maxdo 12 minutes ago | parent

Because it's not America with Vietnam/ Iraq war mindset.

Helicopters are extremely vulnerable for drone interceptors. With Recent developments, the an interceptor can fly up to 600 km/h. It can also wait for you on the balloon.

Overall, piloted aviation, it's almost a dead end with all the recent capabilities.

vzaliva 5 hours ago | parent

It reaffirms that Ukrainians are:

1. very advanced with drones 2. caring about their soldiers

Disclaimer: I am a proud Ukrainian.

helterskelter2 5 hours ago | parent

[flagged]

ahartmetz 5 hours ago | parent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kompromat

>Use of kompromat has been common in the politics of Russia[7] and other post-Soviet states

Surely they wouldn't do the things that they usually do with Trump, who visited Russia in 1987 upon invitation by, more or less clearly, the KGB?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...

usefulcat 5 hours ago | parent

> even Republicans are beginning to wonder what dirt Putin has on Trump.

What dirt could they possibly have on him that would actually matter to the voters that voted for him last time?

Not trolling or rhetorical; that's a completely sincere question. Even if something "bad" were to surface, his supporters would simply deny it and/or ignore it, same as they've done for all the other things he's done that are already known.

You can pretty much divide American voters into two camps right now: the ones who loathe him and the ones who DGAF (non-voting voters being in the latter category).

helterskelter2 4 hours ago | parent

> What dirt could they possibly have on him that would actually matter to the voters that voted for him last time?

Some segment will always deny any dirt that comes out but I think most would become fairly adverse to him if, say, conclusive evidence of child sexual abuse surfaced.

apercu 4 hours ago | parent

I wish “even Republicans” but that party stands for nothing any more, it isn’t even conservative. It’s the most bizarre and morally bankrupt thing I’ve seen in American politics and I’ve been paying attention since the 80s.

tomhow 4 hours ago | parent

Please don't post political/ideological rhetoric on HN. It doesn't matter how correct your position is or how correct you feel it is; it only leads to back and forth arguments between people on opposing sides, and that's just what we're trying to avoid. Please aim for curious conversation at all times here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50156201 and marked it off topic.

cisc 4 hours ago | parent

The curious thing is America has become a Russian ally:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cxr5yvzv7rp0o

tomhow 3 hours ago | parent

That’s an issue that can be debated at the appropriate time and place, but it’s not the topic of this article, so it’s a generic tangent and flamebait, which the guidelines specifically ask us to avoid.

EA-3167 1 hour ago | parent

Setting aside the politics and the personalities, if we focus on the technology and the lessons in how to produce, iterate, and deploy I think there's enormous value in looking at what Ukraine has to offer from a tactical and strategic standpoint. It's a fact that countries and organizations are rushing to benefit from that aspect of this war, from NATO states to organized crime. Unless we imagine that data from this war isn't being actively pursued by any party that thinks they have the ability to adapt their local conflicts to a "new way of fighting", it's a matter of intense intellectual curiosity.

Doubly so when we recall that drones and ML are inextricably linked on the modern battlefield, and the technology we routinely discuss here is already being used in kill chains, ISR, SAR, and it's evolving on a weekly basis.

tomhow 37 minutes ago | parent

Sure, and there's a place for discussion about that (though whether HN can host such a discussion without it spiraling into a hellish flamewar is not something we can be confident about).

That aside, in this context the issue is that the comment very much didn't set aside the politics and the personalities.

EA-3167 28 minutes ago | parent

Of course, I was just trying to extract a bit of good from the bad.

lawn 4 hours ago | parent

No need for dirt. Putin simply funnels money to Trump and that's enough.

skeledrew 5 hours ago | parent

NGL, reading this gave me the feels...

Also, next wartime invention: air mines.

andrewflnr 30 minutes ago | parent

Loitering munitions are already a thing. You just need to combine that concept with interceptor drones. Actually I'm not sure autonomous interceptors are a thing yet, so that might be the blocker.

walrus01 5 hours ago | parent

The German company Avilus has shown a medevac drone, I don't know if it's been used to transport a live human (even uninjured) for a test yet.

https://www.xponential-europe.com/en/Media_News/Magazine/Art...

https://www.google.com/search?num=10&client=firefox-b-d&hs=p...

macintux 4 hours ago | parent

Active discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50155237

dgudkov 1 hour ago | parent

Another Ukrainian innovation using drones: transporting transplant organs.

https://ukrspecsystems.com/blog/pd-2-uav-tested-for-organ-de...

Cpoll 1 hour ago | parent

I think this has been done before, as early as 2022, according to this article: https://globalnews.ca/news/8583562/drone-delivery-organ-tran...

I'd actually assumed it'd be commonplace by now, but I can't find too many stories about it.

atlasunshrugged 50 minutes ago | parent

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/

dgudkov 24 minutes ago | parent

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.

expedition32 20 minutes ago | parent

I hope in the future all wars are fought by drones. Just don't make them unstoppable like in that Horizon videogame.

bamboozled 18 minutes ago | parent

I hope there are no future wars.

The point of war is to kill people.