"On Ukraine's front lines, combat patches are currency. Soldiers trade their insignia for those of other units, mostly, but sometimes for alcohol and cigarettes. When I visited earlier this summer, I brought a stack of U.S. Navy patches from my time as an aviator, along with a rucksack that has featured a steady rotation of insignia from soldiers I've met in war zones around the world."
"The latest addition is a camouflaged crab, the emblem of Ukraine's 34th Coastal Defense Brigade. Even though the group was established less than a year ago, its drone operators may already rank among the deadliest fighters in the history of war. I joined three of them on June 1, one of the most intense days of Russia's invasion, to see firsthand how they are remaking drone warfare."
"That night, after the attack had ended, I rendezvoused with a drone unit from the 34th Brigade in Kherson, in southern Ukraine. We met at a bombed-out gas station a few miles from the Zero Line, the edge of no-man's-land. We were well within range of Russian artillery, but the bigger threat was the first-person-view (FPV) drones roaming the area, which allow a pilot to stalk their targets using a live video feed."
Combat patches function as currency on Ukraine's front lines, traded among soldiers or exchanged for alcohol and cigarettes. A camouflaged crab emblem denotes the 34th Coastal Defense Brigade, formed less than a year ago. Drone operators in the brigade rapidly emerged as among the deadliest fighters, reshaping drone warfare. On June 1, three operators conducted intense operations coinciding with a Ukrainian intelligence strike that destroyed up to a third of Russia's strategic air fleet. The unit operated near the Zero Line from a bombed-out gas station within artillery range, facing FPV drones that enable pilots to stalk targets via live video feeds. The unit, called "Team A," uses call signs: Adama for suicide drones, Ghost for launching and recovering reconnaissance Mavics, and Triple-A to operate Mavics after launch.
Read at The Atlantic
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