The article recounts how an armoured unmanned ground vehicle called the MAUL rescued a Ukrainian soldier who had been stranded behind enemy lines for 33 days. After six failed attempts, the MAUL completed a 5hr 58min, 40-mile mission, survived a mine blast and a UAV strike, and delivered the wounded soldier to waiting medics. The casualty later had his injured limb amputated and is now in rehabilitation in Kyiv. The mission underscores how ground robots and drones are transforming evacuation and frontline medical care in heavily surveilled combat zones.
“Coffin on Wheels”: Armoured MAUL Robot Rescues Wounded Ukrainian Soldier After 33 Days Behind Enemy Lines
The article recounts how an armoured unmanned ground vehicle called the MAUL rescued a Ukrainian soldier who had been stranded behind enemy lines for 33 days. After six failed attempts, the MAUL completed a 5hr 58min, 40-mile mission, survived a mine blast and a UAV strike, and delivered the wounded soldier to waiting medics. The casualty later had his injured limb amputated and is now in rehabilitation in Kyiv. The mission underscores how ground robots and drones are transforming evacuation and frontline medical care in heavily surveilled combat zones.
06:36 PM, 11/17/2025Conflict
Armoured unmanned vehicle completes daring extraction across a drone-monitored 'kill zone'
For 33 days a Ukrainian soldier lay trapped behind enemy lines, kept alive only by a tourniquet after a landmine shattered his foot. Six previous rescue attempts failed when extraction vehicles were disabled in an area troops call a “kill zone” — a stretch so saturated with drones, mines and ambushes that movement is nearly impossible.
On the seventh attempt, an armoured unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) known as the MAUL completed a painstaking, 40-mile mission that lasted five hours and 58 minutes. Despite striking an anti-personnel mine that shredded one of its wheels and taking fire from enemy aerial drones, the MAUL reached the wounded soldier, protected him inside its armoured capsule and returned him safely to waiting medics.
“If the fighter didn’t give up, we had no right to give up,”
— medics of Ukraine’s First Separate Medical Battalion
How the rescue unfolded
Built on an ATV frame and enclosed in an armoured capsule, the remotely operated MAUL ground drone was guided through mined roads under near-constant aerial surveillance. At one point the vehicle lost a wheel to a mine but remained operational. When it reached the casualty, the soldier climbed into the capsule, sealed the hatch and was shielded from a subsequent enemy UAV strike.
Medics on the receiving end then transferred the soldier from the capsule to a stretcher, removed his clothing and the tourniquet that had been in place for 33 days. The injured limb was later amputated; the patient is now undergoing rehabilitation in Kyiv.
People and technology behind the mission
The operation involved dozens of personnel: UGV pilots and navigators, a planning group, drone operators providing overwatch, supporting-unit specialists and the medical evacuation team that effected the handover. The MAUL was originally developed by the First Medical Battalion and is described as an armoured evacuation platform powered by an internal combustion engine that can reach speeds up to 43 mph. Its airless metal wheels and protective capsule are designed to withstand mines and rough terrain.
Production has since been taken over by Ukrainian defence firm DevDroid, which lists each unit at roughly $19,000 (about £14,444).
Wider implications
President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the mission and pledged to scale up ground robotic systems, additional drones and other modern tools to support combat units, logistics and casualty evacuation. Medics say those systems are increasingly vital because traditional medevac operations are often delayed or impossible under continuous drone surveillance and fire.
Volodymyr Koval of the First Medical Battalion described the frontline as being under near-constant aerial observation: a landscape in which troop rotations and ambulance movement are now extremely dangerous. Alex, a foreign volunteer medic in the Zaporizhzhia area, told reporters that seriously injured soldiers can wait days or weeks for evacuation rather than hours, and that most hospital vehicles will not approach within roughly 30 kilometres of the frontline without specialized countermeasures such as drone jammers.
Ground evacuation robots like the MAUL reduce exposure for rescuers and casualties by allowing remote retrieval through areas dominated by drone threats and mines. As one medic put it: stepping into open ground while drones are overhead is often a death sentence.
Conclusion
This rescue highlights both rapid advances in battlefield robotics and how modern drone warfare has reshaped frontline medicine. Robotic evacuations are becoming an essential tool for saving lives where conventional medevac is no longer feasible.