Even UAVs Don’t Abandon Comrades: 63rd Brigade Evacuates Recon Drones

Operators of the 63rd Mechanized Brigade successfully evacuated two Ukrainian reconnaissance drones, Leleka and Mara, from the battlefield.

The brigade’s press service shared the news along with a video capturing the operation.

Using a large multicopter, the fixed-wing UAVs were carefully lifted off the ground and transported to a secure location.

According to the brigade’s report, it was a Nemesis drone, which the Ukrainian Defense Forces typically use as bomber drones.

“Unique footage of our reconnaissance drones being evacuated from the battlefield by drones. The drone war is reaching a new level — Private Nemesis is rescuing Privates Leleka and Mara,” the 63rd Mechanized Brigade shared.

The video footage shows how, during the night, the multicopter separately lifts first the Leleka drone, then the Mara drone, using a mechanical “arm” attached by a cable to its underside, and transports them.

The military emphasized that this was, in fact, a complex and risky but “brilliantly executed operation” by the pilots of the 63rd Brigade’s unmanned systems battalion. The evacuated drones will continue to serve Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance.

The fighting between Ukrainian defenders and Russian invaders shows that the potential of various types of drones has yet to be fully realized. Developers continuously improve them, while pilots employ a variety of tactics in their use.

Recently, external pilots of the Khyzhak Brigade of the Ukrainian Special Police Forces also demonstrated unconventional use of FPV drones on the frontline.

They used them to destroy Russian drones controlled via fiber optics, which were lying in ambush along the routes of Ukrainian equipment movements.

Bomber drones with payload drops are also used to destroy such targets.

Currently, fiber-optic controlled drones, actively used by the Russians, pose a serious threat to Ukrainian forces even deep behind the lines. This is due to their ability to penetrate behind the front line unnoticed by electronic warfare and electronic countermeasure systems, and remain in standby mode for extended periods.