{"id":353162,"date":"2025-08-18T02:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T02:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/353162\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T02:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T02:59:11","slug":"high-tech-drones-turn-ukraines-front-line-into-a-deadly-kill-zone-complicating-evacuations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/353162\/","title":{"rendered":"High-tech drones turn Ukraine’s front line into a deadly kill zone, complicating evacuations"},"content":{"rendered":"

In eastern Ukraine, quiet nights in the dim corridors of a front-line medical post can shatter in an instant. Medics roused from sleep rush to meet another stretcher wheeled in from the Donetsk front<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They work with urgency \u2014 chest compressions and shouted commands \u2014 until it becomes clear that the soldier arrived too late. The room falls silent as his body is sealed in a white bag.<\/p>\n

He could not be saved, the anesthesiologist said, because evacuation took too long. By the time he reached the stabilization point, he was already dead.<\/p>\n

It was not an isolated case, but part of a broader shift in the war<\/a> where medical evacuation has become increasingly difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of drones<\/a> … that can reach far, the danger is there for the wounded themselves and now for the crews working to get them out,\u201d said Daryna Boiko, the anesthesiologist from the \u201cUlf\u201d medical service of the 108th Da Vinci Wolves Battalion. \u201cThat\u2019s why the main difficulty now is transport.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the early months of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion, evacuation vehicles could reach almost to the front line<\/a>, giving the wounded a better chance of survival.<\/p>\n

Now, the heavy use of first-person-view (FPV) drones, which let an operator see the target before striking, has turned areas up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the front line into kill zones. Medics say they have not treated gunshot wounds for months, and most injuries now come from FPVs.<\/p>\n

The drones are the most feared weapon, both because of their precision and because they reduce survival chances for those already injured by complicating the evacuation.<\/p>\n

For Ukraine\u2019s outnumbered army, that makes preserving crew even harder.<\/p>\n

The growing use of FPVs has also made moving the wounded between points more difficult, said the commander of the 59th Brigade medical unit with call sign Buhor, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is getting harder \u2014 the work has to be more mobile, the way we operate changes and the level of safety changes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Asked whether those conditions have increased mortality among the wounded, he replied: \u201cSignificantly. There\u2019s nothing you can do. Everything burns from those FPVs \u2014 everything, even tanks.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained that the munitions carry a charge from a rocket-propelled grenade \u2014 a shoulder-fired weapon that launches an explosive designed to pierce armored vehicles. When it blasts, a jet of molten metal and fragments penetrate the cabin at extreme temperatures. The impact can cause anything from minor cuts and burns to severe wounds, including amputations, depending on where the fragments hit and their size.<\/p>\n

Buhor said self-aid and self-evacuation are now heavily emphasized during training, but the existence of the kill zone means soldiers can be stuck in position for days or weeks \u2014 especially if a wound is not immediately life-threatening.<\/p>\n

When Artem Fursov arrived at the stabilization post late one night with three other soldiers, Buhor inspected his wounds and praised the bandage on his arm, asking who had done it. It was the work of a fellow soldier \u2014 and an example of effective self-aid, Buhor said.<\/p>\n

Fursov, 38, was wounded on Aug. 4 by an explosive dropped from a drone, but he didn\u2019t reach a medical post until five days later. To get to safety, he had to walk several kilometers. A small wooden cross he wore under his clothes the whole time now hangs against his chest.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t even lift your head there. This is already a robot war,\u201d he said about the front line. \u201cAnd the Russians are coming in like it\u2019s their own backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Valentyn Pidvalnyi, a 25-year-old assault soldier wounded in the back by shrapnel, said that one month on the positions in 2022 was easier than trying to survive one day now as infantry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very hard sector,\u201d he said, \u201cbut if you don\u2019t destroy them, they\u2019ll take the tree line, then the town, then the whole region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buhor has worked in the Pokrovsk area since late 2022. When troops are forced to retreat, stabilization points must also move. In the past two and a half years, Buhor and his team have relocated 17 times.<\/p>\n

They left their previous location to the sound of FPV drones.<\/p>\n

Other stabilization points are facing the same situation.<\/p>\n

Boiko from the \u201cUlf\u201d medical service recalls that at the beginning of winter \u2014 when the stabilization point was still in Pokrovsk \u2014 there were still gunshot wounds. That meant there was more direct contact between the infantry, the first line of defense, on both sides.<\/p>\n

Months later, the situation had changed dramatically.<\/p>\n

They try to protect themselves as much as possible \u2014 limiting movement, using camouflage, equipping all vehicles with electronic warfare systems. Their evacuation crews go out only in body armor and helmets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to safeguard both ourselves and the wounded, doing everything we can to hold our position as long as possible. If we have to move farther back, the evacuation route for the wounded becomes longer \u2014 and for those in critical condition, that can be fatal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press reporters Vasilisa Stepanenko, Evgeniy Maloletka and Dmytro Zhyhinas in the Donetsk region and Volodymyr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In eastern Ukraine, quiet nights in the dim corridors of a front-line medical post can shatter in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[124687,3907,2000,299,63917,4179,7661,14617,657,7660,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-353162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-124687","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-evacuations","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","15":"tag-shootings","16":"tag-ukraine","17":"tag-war-and-unrest","18":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115047534683026872","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}