Ukrainian medic says they 'rarely' evacuate wounded soldiers during the day to avoid Russian drone strikes

• Ukraine's medics often operate at night to evade Russian drone strikes when evacuating wounded troops.

• It's not always possible to get soldiers help during the 'golden hour' optimal for soldier survival.

• Despite precautions, Russian attacks continue to make retrievals difficult at any time.

Ukraine's combat medics often move to get wounded soldiers off the battlefield at night to avoid becoming Russia's new drone strike targets, one said this week.

"Drones are a huge problem," Maksim, a combat medic with Ukraine's 59th Infantry Brigade, told CNN's Nick Paton Walsh. "We rarely evacuate during daylight."

Combat medics are routinely sent out in the middle of the night to retrieve injured soldiers, but Maksim said his team makes exceptions and sometimes evacuates the severely injured in the daytime.

In the daylight, first-person-view drones scour the battlefield hunting for troops, vehicles, and equipment. Many carry explosives and can quickly shift from reconnaissance to strike missions.

Maksim and other Ukrainian medics may be tasked with driving up to seven miles to pick up injured soldiers after waiting hours in underground shelters for a call via radio.

In this kind of war, it's not always possible to get soldiers help during the optimal "golden hour," a trauma care concept that says that seriously injured persons should receive assessment and treatment within 60 minutes of being wounded for the best chance of survival.

When US Army Gen. Mark Milley, then the Army Chief of Staff, spoke about the golden hour concept during a congressional hearing in 2019, he was uncertain as to whether this window would be sustainable in future high-intensity combat.

"Evacuating soldiers in high intensity combat against a potential adversary like the Russians or Chinese or even North Korea — first of all the scale and scope of casualties will be significant, really significant, and the ability to evacuate those casualties within sixty minutes," He said. "We'll try, but I'm not guaranteeing."

Even with precautions, getting caught in the middle of enemy fire is unavoidable even at night as Russia relentlessly continues its shelling. This makes medical pick-ups difficult to execute regardless of timing.

"The Russian's have more vehicles, more weapons, more men," said another Ukrainian combat medic, Artem. "And that's the biggest problem."

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