David Kirichenko
The Russia-Ukraine war has evolved into a technological arms race, with uncrewed machines playing a central role across every domain of combat. The skies are now filled with aerial drones, and their kill zone continues to expand in all directions. Drones have revolutionized warfare on land and at sea as well. The latest development is the use of ground robots and their incipient transformation of frontline medicine.
For Ukraine, unmanned systems have become a necessity in fighting a larger and better‑resourced enemy. With no sign of the war ending anytime soon, and with Russia willing to expend seemingly endless numbers of people, Kyiv is turning to technology to help ease the pressure on its mobilization effort and to preserve the lives of its soldiers.
Ukrainian soldiers often have to stay on the frontlines for weeks at a time. In one recent case, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) rescued three wounded Ukrainian soldiers who had been stranded near the front for more than a month—that is, stranded with their wounds for more than a month.
Colonel Kostiantyn Humeniuk, the chief surgeon of the Medical Forces of Ukraine, said, “As of today, the war has fundamentally changed because our enemy uses modern unmanned aerial vehicles.” He added, “On the battlefield, armored vehicles are almost absent…So we are faced with a modern war where drones are the main type of weapon. Today, in the theatre of war, almost all the injuries we see among our service members are drone-related injuries.”
According to Humeniuk, the biggest challenge is that they’ve lost the “golden hour”—the period in which medical attention has a higher chance of saving someone suffering traumatic injury. The army can no longer evacuate wounded from combat zones quickly. “That’s the most serious problem. Evacuating a wounded soldier from the battlefield using any kind of armored vehicle, medical or otherwise, is practically impossible,” Humeniuk said. “Drones have shown that they are low-visibility. They don’t make much noise and are almost unnoticeable on the battlefield.”
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