After four hundred and ninety-one days, hope reached Kostiantyn Vlasenko in the form of a drone.
For almost eight of those months, the 49-year-old Ukrainian soldier had been alone in a hole about 80 by 60 centimetres wide, under the boiler of a wrecked school. His comrade was dead. His left foot was gone in a Russian drone strike. The other one he had cut off himself, with a knife, on a brick. Above him, Russian drones watched every road, ditch and ruin. “If you didn't see it, it saw you,” he told a Ukrainian media outlet, Censor.net.
Rescue seemed impossible. By the account of the officer who planned the mission, trucks and armoured vehicles could not get through. Two ground robots sent to reach him were destroyed.
Then, in early October, a supply parcel dropped by drone held something other than the usual food, cigarettes and occasional chocolates: a strange harness and a phone loaded with instruction videos. The next day, on October 4, a giant six-propeller drone came down to him. Vlasenko clipped himself to the hook on its winch and rose about 70 metres into the air. Controlled remotely, the machine carried him about 15 km (9 miles) over the front line to safety.
Vlasenko is from Kryvyi Rih and serves with the 30th Mechanised Brigade. Before the war, he drove giant trucks at a quarry. He told Censor.net that he volunteered for the army.
Last year, he was sent to a front-line position known as Vertun to join a comrade with the call sign Basky. By his account, the post was a concrete drainage pipe with a dug-out shelter beside it. Daily drone drops kept the two men supplied with food and other needs. On Vlasenko's birthday, the drops reportedly included chocolate and premium cigarettes.
Then the sky filled up with Russian drones. “They had so many of their mavics, their drones, that the sky was dirty,” he said.
By his account, two relief soldiers were sent to his position, but they were killed on the way. Two more, sent to bring back their bodies, also died. So he told his command not to send anyone else. “I'd rather die alone than have them die even more,” he said.
The Flooded Foxhole And A New Shelter
In mid-February, after months in the position, the foxhole flooded. The pair crawled into a wrecked school. A Russian surveillance drone soon spotted them as they went out to collect a parcel of dry clothes and food, and another drone attacked.
Basky was killed on February 16, his 50th birthday. Vlasenko's left foot was hurt and rotted away months later, and his right leg was badly hurt in the fall. “I was already on all fours, just crawling,” he said. Barely able to move, he found a small space under the old boiler.
‘Your Comrades Won't Save You'
At one point, a Russian drone dropped a loudspeaker near him. By Vlasenko's account, a recorded voice played from it. “Brother, we know you're here. Believe me, your comrades won't save you,” it said.
He stayed in that space under the boiler for months. Drones brought food, medicine, cigarettes and sweets every four to five days, according to the outlet Oboronka. He stayed in touch by radio. “It was happiness for me that I wasn't alone, that I could hear someone,” he said.
“It was very lonely. They didn't abandon me, my command didn't abandon me,” he said. His wife sent a book by Stephen King, and he read it.
As his right leg got worse, Vlasenko told the Ukrainian outlet that the bone began pushing out through the skin, and the more he crawled for parcels, the worse it grew. He decided it had to come off.
“I put it on a brick, took a knife,” he said. “Tears were flowing, I had to cut it.” He used a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. He has kept his sense of humour. He recalled telling his commander, “I don't have flat feet and a size 44 now.”
"In April I lost my left foot, which rotted away on its own, and in May I cut off my right one myself," he said.
Six Months To Plan A Rescue
The rescue began as an idea from the officer with the call sign Alex, who oversees drone work in the battalion. About six months passed between that idea and the flight, according to Oboronka, a Ukrainian media outlet that reported on the operation.
Officers heard about a heavy drone from a Ukrainian maker, Gurzuf Defence. It has six rotors and a black frame, and looks like a giant insect. They estimated Vlasenko weighed about 70 kg after more than a year at the front.
The risk was that smaller Russian drones often shoot down large, slow ones. In early October, Vlasenko found a harness and a phone with instruction videos in his parcel. The pilot, call sign Black, had left notes in both Ukrainian and Russian.
Fifteen Kilometres In The Air
On October 4, he was lifted. Three smaller drones flew alongside as decoys. For two hours, small attack drones, artillery and fixed-wing drones struck known Russian drone positions. Two ground teams waited along the route to service the batteries. Units of the 30th, 14th and 43rd mechanised brigades and the 10th Army Corps took part, according to Oboronka.
Vlasenko said one of his escort drones was shot down. Heights did not frighten him. “What I was afraid of was water,” he said, as the machine crossed the river. “I can't swim.” He waved an “okay” sign and made a heart shape for the drone's camera.
“I understood that there was a person below: I wanted to deliver him as quickly and as safely as possible,” Black, who remotely operated the drone, told Oboronka.
The Ukrainian military calls it the first rescue of its kind. Vlasenko was taken to a military hospital in Kharkiv. He has had several operations and will need artificial limbs and rehabilitation.
Asked what kept him going, he spoke of his daughter. “I haven't talked to my daughter for a long time,” he said. “Maybe she'll understand me, because dad was at war.”