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Comment by egorfine | Hacker News Reader

> I wonder what is the risk analysis here?

Simple. Soldier left as is will survive with probability=0. UAV medevac has probability of success strictly > 0.

Now add 100s or 1000s wounded at the same time, some can heal, and go back out to fight, some cannot, some will die during transport. The drone might be shot down, some areas are cleared. Simple? Not at all.

Risk calculations aside, don't forget to take into account how this could impact soldier morale. Just knowing that if injured a giant flying drone will attempt to airlift you to safety, regardless of how hopeless the situation on the ground looks like probably is a huge boost to morale.

... particularly if you know the other side treats their soldiers like the Star Wars CIS treated droids - completely and utterly expendable cannon fodder.

In the situation that Ukraine is, which is a desperate lack of money, ammunition ("thanks" to the US), weapons and soldiers, anything that purely exists to lift troop morale is already worth the effort, and if it even saves only one brave defender, it is more than worth it.

".. particularly if you know the other side treats their soldiers like the Star Wars CIS treated droids - completely and utterly expendable cannon fodder."

Except in reality they largely don't. Exceptions are the prison squads and alike, but the majority of the russian army consists of volunteers whose numbers are limited and Putin had to openly declare repeatedly there will be no mass mobilisation and those who are mobilized not put to combat in Ukraine. So despite some soviet military doctrin remaining, also the russian side had to learn soldiers are not expendable. (remember they had to bring in Korean soldiers?)

> Putin had to openly declare repeatedly there will be no mass mobilisation

Putin also declared he didn't want a war with Ukraine mere days before he started one [1]. You cannot believe a word that comes out of the mouth of any Russian official.

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60392259

The fact remains russia does not send in forced conscripts en masse (only in exceptions they officially had to apologize for).

You consceeding that they dont except when they did and dont see that the after the fact 'apology' will somehow mean they wont again when they decide its worth doing like last time. Their words are worthless

I did not claim Putin will never call for a mass mobilisation. I debated the claim they can afford to not care about the lives of their soldiers.

> also the russian side had to learn soldiers are not expendable.

And yet they're still sending in troops with barely any ammunition worth the name. The Russian M.O. against the Ukrainian fortifications still is meatwaves.

> remember they had to bring in Korean soldiers?

And from what one can hear from the usual milblogger/OSINT/analyst crowd, the NK troops face brutal casualty rates as well [1].

For NK it's still a good deal, enough will survive the ordeal and return that they can teach their own army a bit about modern warfare.

[1] https://kyivindependent.com/north-korean-troops-took-over-7-...

Yeah, they don't care so much about the lives of korean soldiers. But the claim was "their soldiers" which is usually talking about russians. But yes, they also did not care so much about the Ukrainian "russian" conscripts forced to fight. But they do care about russian soldiers from "the motherland". They have to out of basic necessity.

A rah-rah attitude is great, but one should never underestimate an opponent. The reality is a stalemate with small groups occasionally moving past the front line. No meatwaves. This is true for both armies.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/08/20/russia-and-ukraine-a...

Well, it's a war, some people will die. But if drone saves one, that's one life goes on, at least it's very important for that individual life, people often forgot about that when they drown themselves in numbers.

And, if this method got "industrialized", they'll probably use survey drones to do a scan first before more expensive bigger drone gets deployed.

Damn, how long they been fighting now? Years, as far as I can remember. You know sometime I think human beings don't deserve anything pass the tree stick age.

If the alternative is certain death the answer it remains simple: do you have the drone to and can you afford to send it? -> give it a try.

It becomes a whole lot more complicated if you have other options and have to implement triage.

It still is simple.

Probability of death = 1 vs probability of death < 1.

I think they mean compared to the self-driving road vehicles they've been using for evac, not compared to abandoning the soldier.

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