A Soldier Cut Off His Own Foot to Survive. Then Came a Daring Drone Rescue.

A Soldier Cut Off His Own Foot to Survive. Then Came a Daring Drone Rescue.

Pvt. Vlasenko was alone and injured on Ukraine’s front line—a human trapped in a robot war. Saving him would require a totally new solution

By James Marson and Nikita Nikolaienko

The Wall Street Journal

Photography by Emanuele Satolli for WSJ Nov. 5, 2026 9:00 pm ET

Quick Summary

-- To save Pvt. Kostyantyn Vlasenko, Ukraine attempted what it said was the first aerial drone evacuation.

-- Vlasenko survived for months in a ruined school boiler room near Kupyansk, using a radio to report Russian troop movements to his unit

-- For Vlasenko, a safe withdrawal was made even more improbable by the fact that he was missing not only part of his right leg, but his left foot.

***

JB: This article, as far as I could tell. is an ode to the courage of a Ukrainian military officer that includes information about the situation in his tragic part of the world, which I have only partially underlined given its length .

LVIV, Ukraine—After more than a year holed up on the front line of the war against Russia, Ukrainian army Pvt. Kostyantyn Vlasenko heard an ominous sound—the low growl of a Russian armored vehicle, likely packed with soldiers. 

The 49-year-old was wedged under concrete slabs in what was left of the boiler room of a ruined village school. The gangreous remains of his right leg, which he had cut off with a knife a few weeks earlier, lay nearby.

He had no gun, as his rifle had been destroyed in an earlier Russian strike. But Vlasenko still had his most important weapon: his Motorola radio.

“This is Magura,” he said, using his call sign to identify himself. “I can hear a heavy vehicle at 11 o’clock.”

Moments later, there came a buzzing. An explosion rang out, followed by silence. A Ukrainian attack drone had struck the vehicle, stopping it dead. The Russians were still no closer to the Oskil River, a critical Ukrainian defensive line. 

And Vlasenko was still clinging to life. 

In this fifth year of war, Ukraine has all but halted advances by Russia’s much larger and more powerful military—in large part by deploying thousands of aerial attack drones every day to hit soldiers, tanks and other vehicles.

Front line near Kupyansk

A map showing the Ukrainian front line near Kupyansk.

Front line near Kupyansk

Kyiv

Dvorichna

Ukraine

RUSSIAN FORCES

AS OF JUNE 2, 2025

Petropavlivka

Kupyansk

RUSSIAN GAINS

SINCE JUNE 2, 2025

Kyslivka

Borivs'ke

Hlushkivka

Oskil River

Novoselivs'ke

10 miles

10 km

Note: Data as of Nov. 1
Source: Institute for the Study of War

Kyiv/ Dvorichna

Ukraine/ RUSSIAN FORCES/ AS OF JUNE 2, 2025

Petropavlivka/ Kupyans

RUSSIAN GAINS/ SINCE JUNE 2, 202

JB: [...]

Recoissance [IIII] drones from both sides crisscross the skies over the battlefield, directing strikes at almost anything that moves. That has created a desolate no man’s land, roughly 20 miles wide and snaking for hundreds of miles along the front lines.

Aerial drones, guided by pilots miles away, can explode on impact, drop bombs of different shapes and sizes and sow antipersonnel mines. Land drones can be rigged with explosives and even machine guns.

But in a paradox of this evolving form of highly automated combat, the infantryman remains at its heart. Across this scarred landscape of abandoned farm fields and derelict villages are thousands of infantrymen, like Vlasenko, scattered in ones and twos, sheltering in makeshift bunkers—the humans.

Their main task is to survive and use their eyes and ears to spot Russian troops and vehicles—and to claim the territory as Ukraine’s by simply being there.

During his time on the front line, Vlasenko played a critical role helping to blunt relentless Russian assaults near the city of Kupyansk, a key target of a push that Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped would break the Ukrainian military.

The biggest challenge for infantrymen is often getting out. For Vlasenko, a safe withdrawal was made even more improbable by the fact that he was missing not only part of his right leg, but his left foot, shattered by a Russian grenade. He was able to care for his injuries with regular drone shipments of medical supplies—but that wasn’t sustainable.

Four men dispatched as replacements had been killed en route. He dreamed of going home to his wife and four cats, but felt guilty. So he told his commander: “If you’re thinking about sending someone to replace me, don’t."

But the commander didn’t give up. Saving Private Vlasenko would require a new kind of solution. One evening in October, he dispatched a parcel by drone. Vlasenko ripped it open to find some kind of harness, along with instructions written on paper and recorded on a cellphone video.

Vlasenko grasped the plan. They were going to attempt what Ukraine would later say was a first in the history of warfare: an evacuation by aerial drone.

The Wall Street Journal spoke with Vlasenko, his commander, Ukrainians involved in the rescue effort and a doctor involved in his care for this account.

A crew from the Unmanned Ground Systems Company of the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade unloads the drone that evacuated Vlasenko.

The pipe

Vlasenko’s war started later than he had hoped. His attempts to enlist after Russia’s 2022 invasion were foiled by bureaucratic flubs and his shaky health after more than a decade working heavy machines in an iron ore mine in his hometown of Kryviy Rih. 

In July 2024, he tore a section off his recruitment papers that flagged him as unsuitable for service and was admitted to the 30th Separate Mechanized Brigade. 

After training, he was initially assigned as a driver, but in November he was dispatched to the eastern bank of the Oskil River, where the Russians were seeking to advance on Kupyansk.

In the first months, Vlasenko and his team could move relatively freely, spending a month or so in front-line positions then pulling back to recuperate for a few days.

That changed in summer 2025, when Russia launched a major push toward the city and expanded its use of drones.

At the start of June, the commander of Vlasenko’s company, a 31-year-old captain known as Naum, dispatched him to replace an injured soldier at a front-line dugout and join another soldier, An driy. 

A soldier draws a diagram of the pipe network where he hid on the front line.

Vlasenko draws the pipes where he spent time sheltering on the front line.

The position was along a main route for Russian vehicles and was unusually well suited to defensive warfare. It consisted of two concrete pipes, each about 16 feet long and 3 feet in diameter, that descended in an elongated V shape to provide drainage under a road near the village of Petropavlivka

Ukrainian soldiers had used a hammer and chisel to break through the concrete in the middle and dug out a small shelter just big enough for two people in the earth beneath. Sacks filled with chiseled concrete and dirt at either end provided protection from Russian explosive drones.

It didn’t take the Russians long to spot Vlasenko. Two days after he arrived, Naum dispatched a drone to deliver power banks for the radio and water. When Vlasenko scrambled out to retrieve the parcel, another drone—this one Russian—suddenly appeared.

A grenade exploded under Vlasenko’s feet. He felt a sharp pain in his left thigh and neck where shrapnel had penetrated. He struggled to speak as blood oozed from his neck, but it had missed his carotid artery and larynx, and he managed to stanch the flow. He reported what happened to Naum. 

"Today is my second birthday,” he thought about an injury that at the time seemed a big deal.

The Russian drones kept coming day after day. Quadcopters with four rotors dropped bomblets, sometimes with strangely shaped charges like Christmas ornaments, and even gas or smoke grenades to try to force the Ukrainians out. Explosive drones would slam into the sacks at the ends of the pipe, which would spit out concrete shards and dust.

Then Vlasenko would grab his shovel—the infantryman’s essential weapon—then refill the bags and stack them back up, all while on his hands and knees.

Vlasenko was more exposed when he ran to fetch supply parcels. Dawn was the best time to make a dash for it, when neither night-vision nor regular cameras were effective.

Kostiantyn Vlasenko receives assistance at his wheelchair inside a rehabilitation centre workshop. Vlasenko at the Superhumans War Trauma Center in western Ukraine.

Wounded Ukrainian soldier Kostiantyn Vlasenko has lunch from a tray in his room at a rehabilitation center. 

Vlasenko has lunch in his room.

His position gave Ukraine valuable information. Russia had largely given up on trying to break through Ukrainian lines with tank columns. Instead, it was sending infantry forward in single armored vehicles, or even smaller cars, motorcycles or quad bikes that were harder to spot and easier to maneuver. 

Vlasenko would listen intently for their sounds and try to sneak a glance to spot them.

 “Heavy vehicle, medium distance, 11 o’clock,” he would pass on to Naum and the team at their command post, indicating an armored vehicle around 500 yards away. 

Ukrainian reconnaissance drones would take off, spot the vehicles and direct strike drones to hit them.

Russian infantry—dispatched in ones, twos or threes—would scramble forward and seek a spot to hunker down and wait for reinforcements. If Vlasenko heard leaves rustling or branches cracking, he would fire his rifle in that direction. But mostly Ukrainian drones hit and killed them before they even came close.

He was driven by a clear purpose. His very presence there kept that piece of land as part of Ukraine. If he hadn’t been there, a Russian would claim it.

His commander, Naum, helped him exchange messages with his wife, Tetyana, by holding his phone to the radio to record a few phrases.

“I’m sitting here drinking Viennese coffee, eating pastries and looking out of the window,” he would say. He’d tell her he was warm and not hungry.

Tetyana, he was sure, knew he was lying. But the pretense shielded them both from the horror of the situation. 

Time to move

In February this year, disaster struck. Groundwater that had been seeping into their shelter burst through a crack in the wall, forcing Vlasenko and Andriy up into the pipe itself. Over the next few days, melting snow and rain began to pool in the pipe, too.

The sacks were holding back the water, but on Feb. 14 one of them slipped, sending water streaming inside.

Vlasenko went to grab his tool kit to unscrew the radio—their lifeline to the outside world—from its bracket. But the water washed it into the flooded shelter. He struggled with his fingers and even his teeth to unscrew the radio. At last it came loose, and the men fled the pipe.

Soaked and freezing, with only their weapons, helmets and the radio, they struck out in search of a new shelter, barely able to stand after months spent almost entirely lying down

The men took what cover they could in a school that had already been badly damaged

Over the next two days, a grenade exploded near Andriy and killed him, and shrapnel from another grenade tore into Vlasenko’s left foot, but he barely felt it as he was so cold.

He later slipped and twisted his lower right leg badly as he made a dash to collect a supply package across ground covered by broken bricks, concrete shards, pieces of steel and other debris. His injuries would turn out to be much worse than he realized at the time.

Now, Vlasenko was alone with two injured legs and limited cover from the Russians. It was clear that he needed a reliable shelter. Then he spotted just the place.

‘This is fantastic’

The school boiler room was a hefty, Soviet-era structure. It bore battle scars, but there was a shielded space under two large concrete slabs and between two large metal boilers.

Vlasenko grabbed a bag of supplies and the radio and, using a rifle as a crutch, hobbled the 25 yards to his new shelter. He sat to rest and have a cigarette, then settled down for the night. 

He updated his team over the radio, and they sent supply drops—every few days when they could, but sometimes with a gap of a week if the Russians were monitoring closely—by drone with bandages, anti-inflammatory pills, painkillers, food and water. It wasn’t long before the Russians figured out where he was.

But he was well protected. Grenades had little effect on his shelter. Shrapnel from a mortar attack sliced through his mug and cutlery but missed him.

The school proved a good vantage point for Russian movements. He listened for engines, and by now he could distinguish between the sounds even of similar vehicles such as quad bikes and motorcycles. He’d inform his team, which would send more drones after them.

Vlasenko with a doctor and during a medical check-up.

Over the next few weeks, Vlasenko adapted to life in his cocoon. He was alone, in constant pain, short on sleep, relentlessly targeted by the Russians, and with no human contact bar the electronic crackling of his radio.

But as the vestiges of normal life crumbled around him, he allowed its boundaries to dissolve and found a way to survive, physically and mentally, in a parallel world of his own creation. Here, he was in control: Animals became his friends, a sugary drink became the nectar of the gods, and even his decaying legs became a source of dark humor. 

He sought to preserve a sense of order in the physical space of his little shelter, too. Tea, coffee and sugar over here; canned meat, porridge and other food over there./ 

Everything around him was being destroyed. His body was falling apart. But he knew where his tea and coffee were. That’s how he liked things. That’s how he had always lived.

He barely slept as he wanted to stay alert to threats and, in any case, didn’t tire easily as he was lying down for almost the whole day

Fetching supply parcels was his main risk. He would crawl on his knees as he could no longer put weight on his feet. At one point, the team realized that every time they announced on the radio that a delivery was on the way for Sokyra, Vlasenko’s original call sign, the Russians would be ready to ambush him with a drone. So they changed his nom de guerre to Magura, a winged cloud maiden from Ukrainian mythology who hovers over battlefields to guide fallen warriors.

His main deficit was water. He began collecting rainwater in his helmet and would chew on ice if he didn’t have the patience to melt it using his burner. If artillery was firing, the water tasted bitter and was undrinkable. If the wind blew from the Ukrainian rear, where there was no fighting, the water was fresh and clean. 

Communications were becoming more difficult so messages to his wife would simply be passed on by Naum. His reminders of home were a photo of his four cats and a key ring with a print of his wife’s eyes. Naum advised against having a full portrait with him for security reasons. 

A metal keyring printed with a pair of eyes held in a hand./ Vlasenko's reminders of home included a metal key ring with an image of his wife's eyes. Kostyantyn 

Vlasenko/ Alone, with no human company, he thought of nearby creatures as his little crew. Three mice shared the space with him, but only one came close. He gave it the female name Mashka and fed it pieces of cracker.

There was a spider he called Romka, who would crawl along a brick, make a circuit, then go back the way he’d come, as if dropping by to say hello around the same time every day.

Vlasenko would later liken his daily survival to “dancing with death.” His life had moved so far from any normal human experience, but he embraced his metamorphosis into something like a character from Greek mythology.

Once, a deputy commander took his order for medicine, then asked what else he needed. He requested two coins, referring to the ancient Greek tradition of putting two coins on the eyes of the dead to pay for their transportation to the underworld. Then he put on a booming voice. “I’m the ferryman of River Styx!”

His commander and other officers were working on a plan to get him out. Meanwhile, the parcels kept his spirits up. His wife sent him a Stephen King novel, “The Outsider,” which he devoured in two days. The team sent him a small, battery-powered fan to keep him cool. Desperate for a carbonated drink, he requested Fantas. The taste reminded him of the Christmas holidays. 

“This is fantastic,” he said to himself.

Later, his team sent him a phone preloaded with hundreds of films, including war movies and horror flicks, a particular favorite.

Lying there, watching a movie with the fan running while drinking tea, Vlasenko could almost forget what was happening around him.

Surgery

There was no getting away from the reality that his legs were deteriorating. Both of them started to turn black and swell in the freezing temperatures, signs that the tissue was dying. Around mid-March, he said, a hole developed in his fractured lower right leg and a bone began protruding.

He bound them up with bandages simply to hold them together and used antiseptic to clean them as best he could. His team sent frequent supply drops with medication and dressings, along with instructions from medics.

Still, his mangled left leg was decaying. Once, while dressing it, he noticed maggots on it. One day in the middle of April he was crawling on his knees dragging a supply parcel when he heard something drop behind him. He wondered what it was, then turned and saw his foot. He picked it up./ Back at the shelter, he got on the radio to tell his team. He deadpanned that his foot had run away.

Naum said he immediately consulted with medics about what to do and passed the advice to Vlasenko.

Volodymyr Kuprianchuk, a doctor who later operated on Vlasenko in hospital, said too much time had passed since the injury occurred for him to fully assess what had happened, but it could have been a case of so-called “autoamputation,” where tissue dies and the limb, in this case the foot and part of the leg just above the ankle, simply falls off.

IMAGE Kostiantyn Vlasenko, a wounded soldier from the 30th Separate Mechanized Brigade, sits in a wheelchair inside an elevator at the Superhumans rehabilitation centre.

Vlasenko at the Superhumans War Trauma Center, where he is learning to use a wheelchair. Vlasenko dressed the wound. The bandages soon got dirty from all the dust and debris, so he asked for socks to put over the dressing on the stump.'

He stored the foot in a boot liner and propped it up against the wall. In quiet hours, his unoccupied mind would wonder whether he should clean the bones and preserve them as a souvenir. (He didn’t.)/ His attention soon turned to his right foot. The broken bone was protruding further and further—by now a couple of inches were sticking out. The foot was hanging and pulling at the skin and tendons when he crawled to fetch parcels.

Eventually, in May, Vlasenko decided that since the foot was beyond saving, he had better cut it off.

He placed his leg on a brick, took the hunting knife that he used to open cans and wiped it with an alcohol-based wet wipe. Then he began to cut. He hadn’t wanted to cry, but when he reached the nerve endings his body simply began reacting on its own. Tears began running down his face. The pain wasn’t so sharp, as the foot was numb, but it felt strange.

Vlasenko decided to let his commander know.

“You can congratulate me,” he said.

“Congratulate you for what? Repeat that,” came the response of a concerned and confused Naum.

“I no longer have a right foot or a size 44 shoe.”

 He stored the right leg next to the left one in another boot liner.

After a few days, he noticed they were. 

Kcrawling with maggots, so he tossed them outside through a window.

A couple of weeks later, he glanced outside and saw dozens of orange and black butterflies feeding on them. He took the presence of such beautiful creatures rather than flies as a sign.

“Maybe God has plans for me yet,” he thought./ ⁠A pilot’s view of the flight to evacuate Vlasenko through a camera mounted on the drone. 

92ND SEPARATE ASSAULT BRIGADE/ ‘4-5-0’/ The Ukrainians—and, for that matter, the Russians—certainly did.

Just after his left foot had fallen off, Ukraine had sent a ground drone to try to rescue him. Slow-moving but durable wheeled robots have become a crucial way of evacuating the battlefield wounded without exposing more soldiers to danger. Vlasenko gathered his things, but the machine was destroyed en route. A later attempt also failed.

The Russians also wanted to offer him a way out. In June, a Russian drone dropped not a grenade but a loudspeaker.

Brother,” a monotonous voice intoned, “we know you’re here. Your comrades won’t help you. The next one could hit you. We don’t want to kill you.”

The voice proposed that he surrender. Vlasenko gave his answer with an expletive.

Half an hour later, Vlasenko heard a large drone approaching. As it hovered overhead, Vlasenko realized it was about to drop a bomb. He pressed himself against the wall, curled up and clenched his teeth.

The explosion hit. Vlasenko couldn’t breathe or see for the dust and debris. His ears were ringing. As the seconds passed, his hearing started to come back.

“Brother, we know you’re here…” the speaker prattled on.

Vlasenko got on the radio. “4-5-0,” he said, the code to indicate he was OK.

The drone descended again for another strike.

A drone of the type used to evacuate Vlasenko, and weights used for drone-training exercises. “Drop it, you bastard! Come on, drop it already!” Vlasenko said in his head as he braced himself.

The explosion blasted more debris toward him, but he was protected by cast-iron grates above him that were part of the boiler structure.

Vlasenko kept silent, so that the Russians, if they were listening in, would think him dead.

He stayed silent until around midnight, when all the Ukrainian infantry posts were checking in.

“Magura. 4-5-0,” he said.

“Repeat! Repeat that again!” came the response.

“4-5-0,” he said.

“You’re alive!” 

Members of the Unmanned Ground Systems Company of the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade carry a large rescue drone through a field in Ukraine.

Members of the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade move the drone used to rescue Vlasenko.

‘What a machine!’

Around the end of September, Naum came over the radio with a curious question: “Magura, how much do you weigh?”

Vlasenko, who weighed around 75 kilograms, or 165 pounds, before the war, realized something was happening—perhaps a rescue by quad bike and trailer.

“Let’s say 70 kilograms,” he said. “I don’t have my feet anymore, after all.

Kuprianchuk, the doctor, said a confluence of factors had served to help prevent his injuries becoming fatal. The cold temperatures of winter initially may have slowed the spread of infection. He had access to medications dropped by drone and he was able to keep the wounds clean and covered, preventing reinfection. Further, the fact that the damage was at his extremities around his feet could have lessened the impact on the rest of his body.

A week after asking his weight, the commander told him a package was on its way that he should collect immediately to avoid any chance that the Russians could destroy it.

He grabbed the parcel as soon as he could after it landed around 6 p.m. on Oct. 3. There was something metal clanging inside. He got back to his shelter and tore it open to find a harness with instructions scribbled on it and a phone. He hit play on a video and saw a huge drone.

“What a machine!” Vlasenko thought.

He had to be ready at dawn, but he pulled on the harness straight away—not an easy task in the limited space. As day broke, he edged toward the daylight.

“Magura, be ready,” the radio crackled.

Vlasenko confirmed he had received the message, saying, “Plus, plus.”

He heard a rumbling sound, distant at first, but getting louder until it was like a helicopter approaching. The drone was a Heavy Shot Ayudag-6. Gurzuf Defense, a Ukrainian company, had manufactured the drone with six rotors and a payload capacity of nearly 300 pounds to supply units with ammunition and other heavy loads. Drone evacuation specialists from the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade had adapted it for the mission. The rescue was set in motion as soon as the craft was ready. 

Before it had landed, Vlasenko was already crawling toward it. The motors stopped and the team commanded him to lie down.

Vlasenko rolled over and saw a carabiner. He clipped himself on, and made a heart sign to the camera.

The drone team fired up the motors, and the craft began to ascend.

Vlasenko soars toward safety. 92ND SEPARATE ASSAULT BRIGADE/ 

The pilot, a man from Vlasenko’s brigade called Chorniy, said that he navigated away from the danger areas where Russia had downed other Ukrainian drones using electronic-warfare equipment that disrupts the signal between the pilot and the craft. 

Several large Vampire drones were serving to distract the enemy’s attention. Ukrainian electronic-warfare equipment was warding off potential attacks from Russian interceptors.

A Ukrainian soldier called Vader, part of the evacuation team from the 92nd Brigade, said the work required the timing and cohesion of an orchestra, “a very large orchestra in which everyone has to play their part at exactly the right moment.”

The drone rose to around 300 feet. Vlasenko isn’t scared of heights, but he quivered when the drone passed over a river, as he can’t swim.

After flying around 10 miles, the drone landed. Three Ukrainian soldiers ran over to help Vlasenko but he waved them away. Used to doing everything for himself, he unclipped his harness and crawled to a waiting ground robot. They helped him on board, and the machine set off.

When he reached his unit’s rear base, he knew he had made it out alive, after nearly 500 days on the front line. It was the first successful rescue carried out by aerial drone.

Vlasenko’s landing. 92ND SEPARATE ASSAULT BRIGADE

The team whisked him to hospital in the eastern city of Kharkiv. He called his wife, who didn’t recognize his voice at first./ “Everything’s all right,” he told her. “The guys saved me.”

IV Hero Transferred to the Superhumans War Trauma Center in western Ukraine that specializes in caring for amputees, Vlasenko spoke with the Journal over several hours during two days last week.

If He longs to get back to his wife and his routine at home with his four cats.

Then he wants to return to his unit. There were many changes while he was away—from the battalion commander to the style of uniform worn by Ukraine’s army. “But I’ll never forget how those guys treated me and supported me throughout all those months,” he said." On Oct. 30, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded Vlasenko the title of Hero of Ukraine, the nation’s highest accolade." Vlasenko noted that the award is usually given posthumously." “But this time they gave it to someone who’s still alive,” he said, laughing. “Pretty cool!” Russia’s top general declared last November that Russian troops control Kupyansk. But Ukraine’s military says that was never the case, and has recently mounted counterattacks in the area." Vlasenko played down his own role in holding the Russians off." “I did everything I could. Every infantryman holding his position is doing something incredibly important,” he said. “And there are many other guys like me.”

Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

 

Appeared in the November 7, 2026, print edition as 'A Daring Rescue Plan Lifts Off in Ukraine'. 

James Marson leads Ukraine coverage for The Wall Street Journal. He has covered Ukraine for 15 years, chronicling its efforts to establish itself as an independent European democracy through a revolution and a war with Russia. James began writing for the Journal in Ukraine before moving to Moscow to cover oil and gas. He soon switched back to Ukraine, where he wrote about the Maidan revolution and Russia's invasion in 2014. He moved to Brussels to cover European security in 2019, but shifted his focus back to Ukraine when Russia invaded in February 2022. 

Following Nikita Nikolaienko is a contributor to The Wall Street Journal covering the war in Ukraine. He is based in Kyiv.