• A Ukrainian brigade said it used an FPV drone to deliver an escape bike to a trapped soldier.
• Its chief of staff said it took three tries with a Heavy Shot drone to make a successful drop.
• It's one of the first recorded instances of an FPV drone being used for such logistics in a warzone.

A Ukrainian brigade said it used first-person-view drones to deliver e-bikes to a surrounded soldier, marking a rare instance where such devices were used to airlift a vehicle in battle.

In a video published on Wednesday, the "Rubizh" 4th Brigade of Ukraine's National Guard said it dropped the roughly 88-pound e-bikes so the soldier could escape mostly Russian-controlled territory.

While the brigade didn't say in the video when the operation occurred, it said the soldier had been trapped at a shelter near Siversk, a town in Donetsk, where fighting is still ongoing.

"The enemy was in front, behind, and on both flanks. Completely surrounded," Mykola Hrytsenko, a junior lieutenant serving as the brigade's chief of staff, said in the video.

The soldier, whom the brigade identified by the call sign Tankist, was the only survivor of four Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the area, Hrytsenko said.

"The Siversk direction is known for incredibly difficult logistics. Almost none exists there. Guys have to walk six to seven kilometers on foot to reach a position," he said.

Hrytsenko said his team crafted an evacuation plan that involved heavy cargo drones, such as the Baba Yaga or Heavy Shot, carrying a bicycle with an electric motor to the exhausted soldier's position.

Such drones are typically used in Ukraine as bombers and are designed to deliver payloads of about 40 to 50 pounds, though they can also airlift cargo.

Carrying a nearly 90-pound e-bike, Hrytsenko said, would push the drone to its limits and shorten its range to roughly 2 kilometers.

It took three attempts, brigade says

Hrytsenko said his team initially lost two drones trying to deliver e-bikes to the soldier. The first was shot down with the bike, while the second crashed because its motors burned out, he added.

But the "Rubizh" brigade published clips of the third drone carrying the bike via a winch system and the soldier appearing to receive the bike. Business Insider could not independently verify the authenticity of the brigade's footage.

Hrytsenko said the bike's parts were disassembled and brought to a nearby position on the frontline. Afterward, the vehicle was put together and flown to the soldier, he added.

"Everyone in HQ was shouting and crying like we'd just launched the first plane in the sky," Hrytsenko said of the moment when the bike arrived.

The brigade also showed surveillance drone footage of a soldier riding an e-bike through the battlefield.

Hrytsenko said that while the soldier later struck a land mine, he was able to walk several hundred meters to a nearby friendly position, where drone pilots flew in another e-bike so he could fully exit the combat zone.

"The operation cost us two lost e-bikes, around $100,000, and two lost HeavyShot drones, $15,000 each," Hrytsenko said.

The brigade said the soldier evacuated safely and showed interview clips of a man it said was Tankist. BI could not independently verify his identity.

Hrytsenko added that the e-bikes were funded via donations from volunteers, a common occurrence in Ukraine, where units have to crowdfund for drones and weapons.

"If you see a strange fundraiser for an e-bike, or a unicycle, don't be surprised. Maybe it will save a life," he said.

First-person-view, or FPV, drones have been used for many non-combat functions during the war, such as dropping small items on the battlefield or compelling soldiers to surrender via loudspeaker.

However, this marks one of the first times such a drone has been used to deliver a large asset like a vehicle during ongoing fighting. Given that the size of the payload may make a drone easier to spot while limiting its range, it's unclear if this tactic will become more commonplace.

• Ukraine is turning its frontline into a proving ground for the West's newest prototype weapons.
• If firms send in their new tech and train Kyiv's troops to use it, they'll send a combat report back.
• Kyiv hopes this will also pave the way for its local manufacturers to partner with more outside firms.

Ukraine is inviting foreign arms manufacturers to send weapons prototypes for its troops to test in battle against Russian forces.

Its defense innovation unit, Brave1, on Thursday launched "Test in Ukraine," a program that it said would trial the new tech in combat and produce a detailed report for the defense contractor.

"This is an opportunity to gain experience that cannot be simulated in laboratories," said Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's minister for digital transformation, at an arms conference in Wiesbaden.

Among the program's listed top priorities are uncrewed aerial systems, robot ground vehicles, missiles, and laser weapons.

"Test in Ukraine" will require the contractor to teach Ukrainian troops how to use the prototype, though this can optionally be done online, Brave1 said in a statement.

After that, Ukraine will assume control over how the tech is used on its frontline.

"You hand over your product to Brave1, and we take care of the rest," the organization said on its website.

Kyiv also hopes to pair the foreign arms makers with its own manufacturers to produce the tested weapons locally.

Ukraine is already a testbed for many NATO weapons against Russian capabilities, from armored vehicles to long-range missiles to anti-tank munitions.

But the announcement comes amid some concern in the greater arms industry that contractors may be developing new weapons after studying the Ukraine war, but aren't testing them in combat.

"If you are a drone company and you do not have your kit on the frontline in Ukraine, you might as well give up," Luke Pollard, the UK's minister of state for the armed forces, said in May.

One British defense executive, Justin Hedges, told Business Insider earlier this month that drones have to be tested daily in combat to avoid becoming obsolete.

"If your system is not in day-to-day use on the frontline of Ukraine, it becomes very quickly out of date," Hedges told BI's Mia Jankowicz.

Drone warfare has evolved drastically over the last three years of the war. First-person-view UAVs have come to dominate the battlefield, but electronic warfare is increasingly stifling their effectiveness.

As a result, unjammable fiber-optic drones are now on the rise, forcing both sides to rely more on low-tech defensive measures such as 12-gauge shotguns to destroy drones kinetically and fishing nets to entangle them mid-flight.

Last month, Ukraine debuted a new type of rifle bullet that can discharge fragment spreads at greater range to counter incoming FPV drones. Russian troops were producing their own DIY version months ago.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is going all in on bolstering its defense manufacturing industry, offering its local weapons-making experience to Western countries while ramping up production of domestic arms.

Its new testing initiative could also provide additional weapons supplies for its troops fighting against Russia's war of attrition, both in manpower and matériel.

A spokesperson for Brave1 did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours. Russia's defense and foreign affairs ministries also did not respond to a similar request sent by BI.