Drone Operator Beats Battlefield Wounds – and Cancer

Volodymyr Yurchenko’s body has endured much, but his focus is clear. To serve his country now and into a better future.

As one of the first generation of drone operators in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) from the earliest days of the full-scale war, Yurchenko, now 24, was significantly wounded in a Russian missile attack in eastern Ukraine in April 2022. A filmmaker by training, he recovered from his injuries, revealed by his facial scars, and returned to military service.

However, in September 2022, he started to cough and feel unwell during duty. His symptoms rapidly deteriorated before it was discovered that his lungs and other organs were riddled with Burkitt’s lymphoma, an aggressive and fast-moving cancer, that had reached the deadly stage 3. A potential trigger was the stress and trauma of Yurchenko’s battlefield wounds.

But Yurchenko remarkably recovered from this illness too, and once again returned to duty. In remission, he is now a member of the elite 412th Separate Battalion of the Unmanned Systems Force. Known by its Ukrainian acronym SBS, this is Ukraine’s unprecedented equivalent of a stand-alone command for drone operations – the equivalent of the Air Force but for UAVs.

Yurchenko – or “Yushch” as he is known to friends – is calm and matter-of-fact as he shares “yantyk” in a Crimean Tatar restaurant with Kyiv Post.

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“That’s just the way matters occurred,” he says when asked about surviving two life-threatening situations. “Some say war is the worst thing that can happen to you. But war and cancer together are probably worse.”

Yurchenko recounts the chronology of his rare form of cancer and the types of treatments he received, including in Spain where he spent most of 2023 under expert medical care as part of a Ukrainian Ministry of Health initiative.

“I received a great sense of confidence from the Spanish doctors. I knew everything would be okay,” he recounts. “My only regret was not being able to serve with my brothers-in-arms, especially during the liberation of territory around Kharkiv.”

After having lost 17 kilograms (37 pounds) from his wiry frame, Yurchenko “focused on rebuilding to be ready for service again by swimming and by hiking in the Pyrenees, increasing the distances and elevations kilometer by kilometer.” Pre-war, Yurchenko’s hobby was long-distance bicycle treks, including throughout Georgia.

Upon returning to Ukraine in late 2023, Yurchenko chose to continue service in Ukraine’s defense in the newly created drone command.

“Drones are currently our saviors. They are allowing us to transform the war and make it fully asymmetrical to our advantage,” Yurchenko says. “We rely on being faster and smarter than our enemy. It is a constant game of both operational and strategic ping pong.”

He comments on how much has changed and improved in Ukraine’s conduct of drone warfare since the early days of the full-scale war, including domestic manufacture of UAVs and the comprehensive “eye in the sky” capability that field commanders now have.

“Creativity and innovation are critical and they are enabled by the fact that many people in the strategic command come from the business and IT sectors,” Yurchenko notes and points out the cutting edge, Ukrainian-developed DELTA battlefield management software system, as well as AI-based applications.

As publicly reported, DELTA provides the Ukrainian military with an integrated platform for: situational awareness; streaming services for UAVs and stationary cameras; secured chat; and planning tools and synchronization matrix for reconnaissance and target acquisition assets.

“SBS has significantly increased our capacity to support brigades in the field and hit the enemy and, therefore, I’m very proud to be part of it,” Yurchenko says.

But there is life beyond the battlefield that Yurchenko looks forward to with his girlfriend, Halyna, a project manager overseeing reforms in Ukraine’s child welfare system.

 “We want to establish an eco-base in the Karpaty mountains. There, kids impacted by the war and veterans can undertake nature-based therapy and recovery,” Yurchenko says. “We need to rebuild bodies and minds as well as our country’s buildings and bridges.”

That is something that Yushch knows a lot about.