Ukraine 47th Brigade Soldier With 5 Wounds Rescued By Drone and M-2 Bradley

The soldier, shot five times, and hiding, signaled a drone, whose operators then dispatched a Bradley M-2 with medics on board. 

The combined action saved his life. JL 

David Axe reports in Forbes:

A wounded Ukrainian soldier, shot five times in a skirmish west of Avdiivka signaled a passing unmanned aerial vehicle, gambling the drone was Ukrainian and not Russian—and that the drone’s crew would alert a rescue team. Dmytro took a chance. “At his risk, he signalled he needed help,” the 47th Mechanized Brigade explained. “At first, he pointed to ... the clock [sic], saying that time was running out. After that, he pulled out a military I.D., proving that he was not an enemy.” An hour after signaling the drone, an M-2 rolled up. Two soldiers leaped out to pull Dmytro into the vehicle, inside which medics waited. Dmytro’s drone gamble saved his life. But the speedy M-2 helped, too.

A wounded Ukrainian soldier named Dmytro, shot five times in a recent skirmish west of the ruins of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, knew he didn’t have long before he bled out.

So he signaled a passing unmanned aerial vehicle, gambling that the drone was Ukrainian and not Russian—and that the drone’s crew would alert a rescue team.

The gamble paid off. The Ukrainian army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade recounted the soldier’s harrowing story in a Telegram post that included a video of Dmytro himself. The Estonian analyst War Translated helpfully translated Dymtro’s words into English.

Dmytro’s unit from the 47th Mechanized Brigade was leaving its positions, presumably somewhere around the village of Krasnohorivka, when it came under Russian fire. “I received five gunshots and became unfit for combat,” Dmytro recalled.

It’s unclear what happened to Dmytro’s comrades. All alone and bleeding, Dmytro crawled into a treeline and administered first aid. But bandages and tourniquets would only delay the inevitable. “I was struggling, so I was hoping for a miracle—to be found,” Dmytro said.

Like any battlefield in the 28th month of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, the place where Dmytro lay dying hummed with drones. “Miracle happened,” he said, “a drone approached me.”

But there was no way to be sure the drone was Ukrainian rather than Russian. If he gave away his hiding spot to a Russian surveillance drone, the crew could have called in an explosive first-person-view drone—or artillery.

Dmytro took a chance. “At his peril and risk, he began to signal that he needed help,” the 47th Mechanized Brigade explained. “At first, he pointed to ... the clock [sic], saying that time was running out. After that, he pulled out a military I.D., proving that he was not an enemy.”

The Ukrainian drone crew got the message—and helped organize a rescue mission. Luckily for Dmytro, the 47th Mechanized Brigade is uniquely equipped for swift rescues.

The brigade is the Ukrainian army’s sole operator of American-made M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, which are fast, capacious and well-protected. The 47th Mechanized Brigade frequently sends M-2s to rescue surrounded infantry squads and fetch wounded troops from front-line positions.

Just an hour after signaling the drone, an M-2 rolled up to Dmytro’s hiding spot. Two soldiers leaped out to help pull Dmytro into the vehicle, inside which medics apparently waited. “I was taken away, provided first aid,” Dmytro said.

The M-2 rushed Dmytro to the safety of Ukrainian lines, where an ambulance crew presumably took charge. “Now I’m in a hospital, healing,” Dmytro said.

 

The daring rescue is just the latest reminder why the 47th Mechanized Brigade is so fond of its M-2s—and why, in a recent aid package, the United States sent an additional 100 or so M-2s to replace the roughly 40 Bradleys the Ukrainians have lost out of their initial consignment of 200.

Dmytro’s drone gamble saved his life. But the speedy M-2 helped, too.