Servicemen of the 475th Separate Assault Regiment CODE 9.2 conducted two air evacuations of wounded fighters within a single week using the StarGate unmanned casevac. This was reported by RBC-Ukraine, citing an official statement from the regiment on Facebook. The situation required immediate medical intervention: both wounded men were located in the so-called grey zone, approximately five kilometers from the state border with Russia, and ground transport could not reach their positions due to difficult terrain, water obstacles, and the constant threat of enemy FPV drones. Air evacuation remained the only available way to deliver the fighters to medics.
Who Was Rescued and What Were the Conditions
The rescued fighters were 25-year-old Yevhen, call sign 'Izyum', and 24-year-old Artem, call sign 'Kolobok'. Both sustained severe limb injuries and were in positions where any movement on the ground could cost a life. Preparation and execution of the two complex evacuation missions took a week: the SkyFall team, developer and manufacturer of the StarGate casevac, joined the effort, along with several units that provided fire cover and logistics. Heavy Vampire strike drones were used to suppress enemy positions in the operation area.
Thirty Kilometers Under Electronic Fire
One of the missions became the most indicative: StarGate covered nearly 30 kilometers to the wounded soldier's position and the same distance back — already with a person on board. In the operation area, the enemy actively used electronic warfare equipment, attempting to completely suppress the GPS signal. Despite this, the artificial intelligence-based navigation system installed on board the drone, combined with the pilots' skill, allowed for a stable flight in the absence of satellite navigation and successfully completed the evacuation.
Casevac as a Systemic Tool
Commander of the 475th SAR 'CODE 9.2' Oleksandr Nastenko (call sign 'Flint') stated that the experience gained will form the basis for training crews and turning such missions into a systemic practice. According to him, the regiment plans to amend its staff structure and create a separate air medical evacuation unit within the medical company, specializing directly in evacuating the wounded from the battlefield by air transport. Thus, isolated successful operations are turning into a standard combat mission for the unit.
Context: From Isolated Case to Doctrine
Previously, the Ukrainian military had already demonstrated the capabilities of heavy drones for evacuating the wounded, but the mass use of casevacs in combat conditions remains a relatively new stage. The combination of AI-based autonomous navigation, resistance to electronic jamming, and a payload capacity sufficient to transport a human makes StarGate one of the few unmanned solutions in the world capable of performing medical aviation tasks under active warfare conditions. The experience of the 475th regiment, recorded in two real missions within a week, confirms the viability of the concept and paves the way for its replication in other units.
