Ukraine's 92nd Separate Assault Brigade released footage on Monday, October 19, showing what it calls the world's first evacuation of a wounded soldier from the front lines by an aerial drone.

The video shows the unidentified infantryman strapping himself into a harness beneath a large six-rotor craft before it lifts him at low altitude over blurred-out territory and lowers him to safety, where the operator greets him with 'Welcome back to the ground!'

The brigade said ground evacuation was impossible because of intense enemy drone activity and landmines, so specialists attempted 'something that had never been done before.' The soldier is undergoing treatment and rehabilitation, with his life no longer in danger.

The rescue exists as released footage that NBC News describes as showing the soldier securing himself into the harness and saying 'That's it, we can take off' once fully buckled in.

According to Tom's Hardware, the soldier was identified by the callsign 'Kostya,' located roughly 11 miles behind enemy lines, and stayed in constant contact with a UAV operator using the callsign 'Black' from the 30th Brigade's 20th Mechanized Battalion throughout the flight.

When Kostya touched down safely, the control room erupted into applause. Operators told him 'Congratulations, you're on the ground.'

The brigade's statement called the mission a success and said the soldier, who could not be reached by ground vehicles because of mines, is recovering in stable condition.

The aircraft was a heavy-lift hexacopter originally designed as a bomber by Ukrainian manufacturer Gurzuf Defence, supplied free of charge according to reporting by The Times of India, which cites The War Zone.

According to SOFX, the craft was a Heavy Shot Ayudag-6, and the flight lasted 1 hour, 14 minutes and 36 seconds covering 39 miles. SOFX also reports, citing Ukrainska Pravda, that the hexacopter weighs about 215 pounds and can carry a payload of 150 to 200 pounds.

Engineers had to ensure the drone could carry a human without flipping or swaying excessively, and conducted preliminary tests at Gurzuf Defence facilities before planning the mission with supporting units, including the 30th and 14th Mechanized Brigades and the 10th Army Corps.

Until now, heavy drones had delivered ammunition and cargo to the front line, as Gurzuf Defence noted per SOFX; lifting a living human suspended beneath a bomber-derived airframe is an entirely new category.

It was 'historic,' according to the brigade's squad leader and programmer with the callsign Napalm, who called the soldier a hero for agreeing to the mission 'having seen and heard the kind of machine that had arrived to get him.'

Ukraine's Ground Forces said its drone units are already conducting operations 'that were recently considered science fiction.'

The war has become a technological arms race in which mines, artillery and swarms of hostile drones make conventional casualty evacuation increasingly lethal, and Ukraine faces a severe manpower shortage.

Aerial platforms bypass ground obstacles entirely, reaching positions inaccessible to the unmanned ground vehicles Ukraine normally uses.

According to SOFX, SkyFall is separately developing the StarGate evacuation drone, which can carry up to 330 pounds — enough for a soldier in body armor and combat gear — with a one-way range of about 9 miles and an expected cost of at least $50,000 per system, aiming to produce up to 1,000 units per month by the end of 2026.

The method has limits: the soldier hangs exposed beneath the airframe, and the harness approach may not work for unconscious or severely injured personnel.

The rescue came just days after Ukraine's Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi announced that the government had approved an 'experimental project' to use drones for medical logistics, per NBC News.

Flights would require coordination with the military, and drones would receive special status and be identifiable in the air.

'During the war, moving medical cargo by road can cost critical time, especially for transplants,' Koretskyi said, saying drones could carry medicines, blood samples and donor organs between hospitals, including from remote areas.

The rescued soldier's brigade indicated the operation may mark the start of a whole new system of personnel evacuations, and Stars and Stripes notes the U.S. military is testing similar capabilities, including Flowcopter FC-100 medical-evacuation drone experiments in Poland in May.