Ukrainian Soldier Cut Off His Own Leg to Survive, Rescued by Drone After 491 Days at the Front

Trapped in a narrow hole beneath the boiler of a bombed-out school, Ukrainian infantryman Konstantin Vlasenko faced a horrific decision — to survive, he would have to cut off his one remaining leg himself.

A Russian drone strike in February had already torn off his left leg. In the same attack his right leg was broken and twisted, making even crawling almost impossible for him.

After spending nearly three months in that condition, he gathered his courage, picked up a knife, cut off his own leg and tied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. That desperate decision kept him alive.

He was finally rescued in dramatic fashion on October 4. After nearly eight months trapped in the boiler-room hole, and a total of 491 days on a front line saturated with drones, the 49-year-old soldier was brought out by air.

A huge remotely controlled six-propeller drone lifted him into the sky hanging in a harness and carried him 15 kilometres to a safe location. According to Ukrainian commanders, this is the first known case of a soldier being rescued by air using a drone.

Vlasenko served with the 30th Mechanized Brigade deployed in the Kharkiv region. In May last year he was sent to a frontline position to join a comrade known by the call sign 'Baski'. Supplies were sent to the two men, crammed into a narrow hole, by drone every day; on Vlasenko's birthday, chocolate and expensive cigarettes even arrived.

When rotation time came last autumn, two replacement soldiers were killed on their way to the position. Two more soldiers sent to retrieve their bodies were also killed. The married infantryman says that was when he felt it was surely the turning point — no one would get out of there.

After 10 months together, the two men were forced to leave their position in mid-February because the hole had flooded. They took shelter in a destroyed school building. But that relief was short-lived — when they went out to collect dry clothes and food packets left behind by fellow soldiers, a Russian surveillance drone spotted them and another Russian drone dropped a bomb.

Baski was killed in that attack, on his 50th birthday. The blast tore off Vlasenko's left leg, and his other leg was badly injured as he fell. Having almost lost the ability to move, he sheltered in a hole about 80 centimetres long and 60 centimetres wide beneath the metal boiler that once heated the school.

Vlasenko says his left leg slowly rotted and the injury to his right leg was so severe that bone was exposed. In the end he decided to cut that leg off as well. In his words, he had to remove it because it was simply dragging behind him.

As he was losing hope, commanders behind the front line were working with the 92nd Assault Brigade and other units to find a way to bring him out. The officer in charge of planning the operation, who gave only the call sign 'Alex', said the drone threat in the sky had made it almost impossible to evacuate the wounded from the 'kill zone' by pickup truck or armoured vehicle. Attempts with unmanned ground vehicles also failed — two such vehicles tried to reach Vlasenko and both were destroyed by Russian drones.

The officers then learned of a new heavy-lift drone made by local manufacturer Gurzhuf Defence. With six rotors and a black frame, the drone looks like a giant insect and can lift 90 kilograms over a distance of up to 25 kilometres. After more than a year at the front, Vlasenko weighed about 70 kilograms. That drone flew him 15 kilometres to a safe position. From a hospital bed in the city of Kharkiv, Vlasenko told Reuters: 'I had already buried myself. I knew there was no hope.' Video footage from the Ukrainian military and from the camera of the rescue drone supports his account of suffering and rescue, although Reuters could not independently verify every part of his story.