"Perhaps a dozen video feeds come through to his screen on an increasingly hot section of the front, running roughly from Pokrovske to Huliaipole, 50 miles east of Zaporizhzhia city. Dmytro, 33, is with the 423rd drone battalion, a specialist unit only formed in 2024. He cycles through the feeds, on Ukraine's battlefield Delta system, expanding each in turn. The grainy images come from one-way FPV (first person view) drones; clearer footage, with heights and speed, from commercially bought Mavic drones;"
"It is flat, farming land punctuated by destroyed villages, the meeting point of the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Ukraine map While Vladimir Putin's most recently stated goal is to take all Donetsk, by diplomacy or force, it is near here that the line yielded in November. The geography makes it tricky to defend, Kostya observes: There are a lot of fields and if we lose a height advantage, we have to retreat for kilometres."
Dmytro, 33, monitors and assists drone crews from a wooden-log bunker for the 423rd drone battalion along the front between Pokrovske and Huliaipole, east of Zaporizhzhia. The unit uses a battlefield Delta system to manage feeds from one-way FPV drones, commercial Mavic drones showing altitude and speed, and bomber drones indicating munitions. The terrain is flat farming land with destroyed villages, offering little natural defense and making height advantages crucial. An opportunistic Russian attack east of Huliaipole in November overwhelmed a weary territorial brigade, leading to a battalion collapse and about six miles of ground lost.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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