Frontlines that were once a gunshot apart are now a killing zone several miles deep, as Russian and Ukrainian drone squads, hidden about one- to three miles behind the frontline, target each other’s forces with simple aerial attacks. “Back in 2022, we were still running around with machine guns from the tree lines,” Denys says, almost with nostalgia.
Another brigade member, Dima, whose call sign is Khimik (the chemist), demonstrates an example with a video on his phone. Because an FPV drone explodes on impact, the video ends abruptly in a flash of white noise, and the consequences of the explosion are invisible, as in so many videos released by both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries online. >>>