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A Ukrainian soldier's extraordinary fight for survival has become a tale of courage on the battlefield, after he was rescued in a remarkable manner amid a threat that had been hovering over him relentlessly — enemy drones.
Kostiantyn Vlasenko, 49, spent months sheltering in a cramped pit beneath the boiler of a destroyed school building before he was finally rescued, news agency Reuters reported, citing the soldier's first-hand account and information provided by Ukrainian military officials.
After spending nearly 500 days on Ukraine's drone-infested frontlines, his unyielding resolve to survive finally helped him make it out alive of near-certain peril.
The Ukrainian infantryman, however, had to make an extremely painful and irreversible choice to make his chances of survival last. He had already lost his left foot in a Russian drone attack in February this year.
His right leg was badly deformed in the same strike, leaving it broken and bent and making even crawling extremely difficult.
Nearly three months later, he mustered the courage and went ahead with amputating his own foot with a knife, before applying a tourniquet to stem the bleeding.
While Vlasenko's determination was itself something out of a war epic, the manner in which his country rescued him was no less extraordinary. In a bold operation, described by a military official as a likely first-of-its-kind operation, Ukraine's forces used a heavy-lift drone to airlift him from the frontline.
Vlasenko's ordeal finally came to an end on October 4, after 491 days on the frontlines, including nearly eight months spent hiding in the ruins of the school building.
The Ukrainian military pulled off the rescue operation in a truly spectacular manner: using a giant, remotely operated drone with six propellers to lift him in a harness and fly him about 15 km to safety.
Ukrainian commanders described the mission as the first known instance of a soldier being evacuated by an aerial drone in the war against Russia, now in its fifth year.
Vlasenko endured one of the longest recorded deployments by a Ukrainian soldier on the frontlines of the ongoing war.
The area has become a deadly stretch of battlefield, where swarms of drones make even the slightest movement potentially fatal, leaving soldiers with few places to seek refuge.
Such patches of the battlefield that are highly prone to direct enemy fire are known as kill zones.
The drone evacuation offered the infantryman a remarkable second chance at life, after months of agony during which he had all but given up hope following the self-amputation of his limb.
"I had already buried myself," the soldier was quoted as telling Reuters from his hospital bed in the city of Kharkiv. "I knew there was no hope left," he stated, while looking at his two bandaged stumps.
While Reuters said that the soldier's account was corroborated by the Ukrainian military and video footage from a camera mounted on the drone that saved him, it added that it was unable to independently verify all elements of his recollection.
Vlasenko is a member of Ukraine’s 30th Mechanized Brigade, which operates in the Kharkiv region. In May last year, he was deployed to a frontline position to join another soldier, known by the call sign Basky.
The two men lived in a cramped dugout, relying on supplies dropped by drones.
However, the duo's hopes of being relieved were dealt a major blow in autumn 2025, when two soldiers sent to replace them were killed while making their way to the position, according to Vlasenko.
Two more soldiers dispatched to recover the bodies also lost their lives.
"That's when I remember realising that this would definitely be a turning point," Vlasenko said, adding, "That no one would get out anymore."
After spending 10 months together at the frontline, he and Basky were forced to abandon their position in mid-February when their foxhole flooded.
They sought shelter in the ruins of a school building, but their reprieve was short-lived.
A Russian surveillance drone soon spotted them as they emerged to collect a package containing dry clothes and food dropped by their comrades.
Another Russian drone later struck the location, killing Basky on his 50th birthday and tearing apart Vlasenko’s left foot. The blast also left his right leg severely injured.
With barely any ability to move, Vlasenko somehow crawled into a pit measuring about 80 by 60 centimetres beneath the metal boiler that had once heated the school building.
In his own words, his left foot gradually "rotted away."
Vlasenko's right lower leg was also badly damaged, with the bone protruding through the skin, leaving him with little choice but to amputate the remaining foot as well.
"I had to amputate it because it was just dragging along behind me," he said. "The leg was dragging so much that the bone was sticking out further and further," the soldier added.
"So I no longer had either of my legs," he recalled about the moment.
As Vlasenko endured the agony, his commanders worked with the 92nd Assault Brigade and other units to devise plans to get him out.
The threat from Russian drones led the military to rule out evacuation by pickup trucks and armoured vehicles, per the officer in charge of the operation's planning.
When the chances of a rescue appeared increasingly slim, officers learnt about a new heavy-lift drone being developed by local manufacturer Gurzuf Defence.
The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) resembles a giant insect, with six vertical rotors and a black skeletal frame. It can carry loads of up to 90 kg over distances of up to 25 km.
The drone would have to carry Vlasenko — who officers estimated weighed about 70 kg after more than a year on the front line — for 15 km to a safe position behind the front.
The mission was perilous. Larger Ukrainian drones are often targeted by smaller Russian first-person-view (FPV) drones, which give remote pilots a live view from the UAV's perspective.
The day before the rescue attempt, Vlasenko received a harness along with his regular supply drops. He was also sent a mobile phone preloaded with instructional videos.
Vlasenko was aware of the risks, but he knew this was his best chance of survival.
The following day, on October 4, the massive six-rotor drone arrived. Vlasenko attached himself to a carabiner hanging from a winch beneath the machine, which then lifted him to a height of 70 metres (230 feet).
Three smaller six-rotor drones accompanied the heavy-lift craft, serving as decoys to draw away Russian attack drones.
Meanwhile, four Ukrainian FPV drone teams, backed by artillery units and larger fixed-wing drones, spent two hours striking known Russian drone positions to keep enemy fire at bay.
After 15 minutes of nerve-racking tension, the UAV touched down at its destination, the exact location of which the military withheld for security reasons.
Vlasenko later said that, despite all the horrors he had endured, the journey to safety brought its own distinct fears.
"I wasn’t afraid of falling, say somewhere into the forest, I wasn’t afraid of that," he told Reuters.
"But I was afraid of falling into the water, because I can’t swim," the Ukrainian soldier added.
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(With inputs from Reuters)
