A scary new weapon that changes war in Ukraine

The zealous smell hangs over the city of Radinsk. A couple of minutes after we go to the city, we see where it comes from.

The 250 kg bomb broke through the city’s main administrative building and removed three residential blocks. We visit the day after hitting the bomb, but the fragments are still smoking. From the edges of the city we hear the sound of artillery fire and shots – Ukrainian soldiers who beat drones.

Radinsk is located about 15 km (9 miles) north of the battle city of Pokrovsk. Russia has been trying to capture it since the south since last year, but the Ukrainian forces have so far been able to stop the Russian soldiers from the hike.

Thus, Russia changed the tactics, moving instead of surrounding the city by cutting off the food routes.

Over the last two weeks, since the restless diplomatic efforts to attract fire in Ukraine have not been able to, Russia has strengthened its impetus, having achieved the most significant success since January.

We find evidence of this in Radinsky.

In a matter of minutes, when we arrived in the city, we hear a Russian drone over us. Our team runs to the nearest cover – a tree.

We press it so that the drone does not see us. Then there is a sound of a loud explosion – this is the second drone that affects the next. The drone above us is still hovering. For a few more minutes, we hear the horrific sound of what has become the most deadly weapon of this war.

If we no longer hear this, we run the risk of running to a rigid cover in an abandoned building of 100 feet.

From the shelter we hear the drone again. He may have returned after he saw our movement.

The fact that Radinka is thrown by Russian drones indicates that the attacks are much closer than the well -known Russian positions south of Pokrovsk. They most likely came from the recently occupied territory on the key road coming from the east Pokrovsk to Kastiyantinka.

After half an hour of waiting for the shelter, when we no longer hear the drone, we quickly move to our car parked under the tree, and quickly leaves Radinsk. In the side of the highway we see the smoke blow and something burning is most likely a downed drone.

We go to Bilitzka, away from the front line. We see a number of houses destroyed by a rocket strike overnight. One of them was the House of Switches.

“It’s getting worse and worse. We have heard far-off explosions before. Fortunately, the light was not at home when the attack took place.

“Go to the city center, you will see so much that there is destroyed. Both the bakery and the zoo have also been destroyed,” she says.

In the security of the unavailable drone, we meet the soldiers of the artillery unit of the 5th brigade attack.

“You can feel the intensity of Russian attacks. Missiles, mortars, drones, they use everything you need, cut off the food routes that go to the city,” Serchi says.

His unit waited for three days to deploy to his position, waiting for cloud cover or high -speed wind to provide them with protection against drones.

In a constantly evolving conflict, soldiers had to quickly adapt to new threats provided by changing technology. And the last threat comes from the fiber -optic drones. The coil of tens of kilometers of the cable is installed on the bottom of the drone, and to the pilot, attached to the controller, which is stored by the pilot.

“The video and control signal is transmitted to the drone and from it through the cable, not through the radio frequency. This means that it cannot be detained by electronic interceptors,” says a soldier with a bell moderator, a 68th jaeger brigade engineer.

When drones began to be used in this war in this war, both militants installed their vehicles into electronic war systems that could neutralize the drones. Such protection has evaporated with the arrival of the fiber -optic drones, and at the time of the deployment of these devices Russia has an advantage. Ukraine is trying to increase production.

“Russia has started using fiber -optical drones much before us, while we still experienced them. These drones can be used in places where we should go lower than ordinary drones. We can even enter the homes and look for targets inside,” says Benia, a 68th jaeger drone pilot.

“We started joking that we may have to wear scissors to cut the cord,” says Serchi, an artillery man.

Fiber optical drones have disadvantages – they are slower and the cable can get confused on the trees. But at the moment, their widespread use of Russia means that the transportation of soldiers and their positions can often be deadly than the battlefield itself.

“When you enter the position, you do not know whether you noticed or not. And if you have noticed, you may have lived in the last hours of your life,” says Oles, the chief sergeant of the 5th Brigade’s 5th attack.

This threat means that soldiers spend longer and longer in their positions.

Oles and his people are in the infantry who serve in the trenches directly in the defense of Ukraine. These days, journalists are rarely talking to infantry because it is too risky to go to these trenches. We meet with Oles and Maksym in a rural house transformed into a makeshift base where soldiers rest when they are not unfolding.

“The longest that I spent in this position was 31 days, but I know the guys who spent 90 and even 120 days. Before the drones arrived, the turns could be 3 to 7 days at the position,” Maxim says.

“War is blood, death, wet dirt and chill, which spreads from head to toe. And here’s how you spend every day. I remember one instance when we didn’t sleep three days, warning every minute. The Russians continued to come from us.

Oles says that Russia’s infantry has changed its tactics. “They used to attacked groups. Now they sometimes send only one or two people. They also use motorcycles and in several cases, four -year bikes. Sometimes they slip.”

This means that advanced lines in some parts are no longer ordinary lines with Ukrainians on the one hand and Russians on the other, but more like works on a chessboard during the game where positions can be intertwined.

It also makes it difficult to success on both sides.

Despite Russia’s recent income, it will not be easy and easy to take the entire Donetsk region where Pokrovsk lies.

Ukraine has strongly pushed back, but it requires constant support of weapons and ammunition to maintain the struggle.

And when the war enters the fourth summer, the problems with Ukraine’s labor force against the much larger Russian army are also obvious. Most of the soldiers we meet joined the military after the war. They had a few months of training, but had a lot to learn from work in the Bushany War.

Maxim worked in the drink company before he entered into military service. I asked how his family copes with his work.

“Hard, it’s really hard. My family really supports me. But I have a two-year-old son, and I don’t see it much. I am doing his video, so everything is as good as it can be in the circumstances,” he goes, and he realized tears.

Maxim Saldate, who is fighting for his country, but he is also just a father who missed his two-year-old boy.

Additional reporting Imogen Anderson, Sanjai Gong, Vladimir Lotskaya and Anastasia Levchenko