Ukraine said on Monday that it had taken a wounded soldier off the front line with an aerial drone. The drone unit of the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade posted video: the aircraft drops, the man clips onto a winch and is lifted. The unit did not give the place or the date of the flight. Today's announcement is not proof that the flight happened today.

On Facebook the same unit wrote that the operation succeeded, that the wounded man is in treatment and rehabilitation, and that his life is no longer in danger. That is the brigade's account, not an independent medical bulletin. France 24, with AFP, carried the announcement.

The maker, Gurzuf Defence, said the man had spent almost a year and a half in a position from which a conventional rescue team would have been at mortal risk. The Ayudag-6 hexacopter, it said, took him to a safer spot, where comrades sent him on to hospital. The Kyiv Independent adds that the soldier serves with the 30th Mechanized Brigade and that the 10th Army Corps also took part.

The same outlet, citing Gurzuf, gives the duration: one hour, 14 minutes and 36 seconds, over 62 kilometres. Those figures are the company's, not a published flight log. An operator from the 30th Brigade, call sign Chornyi, said it went well.

Ukraine has long evacuated wounded soldiers with unmanned ground vehicles. AFP notes that this is the first reported case with an aerial drone. The brigade called it a world first. France 24's French edition recalls civilian drone rescues, including in China. A combat first claimed by Kyiv is not a verified first for the whole world.

Gurzuf co-founder Pavlo Feldblum said aerial rescue should not become routine: the risks for a wounded person in the air are too high, and the air route is a last resort. This is not a standard procedure and not a ledger of the whole war.

Image: Ed Schipul, generic hexacopter, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons; not the Ayudag-6.

Sources consulted: Ukraine deploys drone to airlift wounded soldier in world-first operation - France 24; Ukrainian forces evacuate injured soldier from front-line position by drone in first-of-its-kind mission, video shows - The Kyiv Independent.