Ukrainian soldiers call this territory the “death zone”. This is not a classic frontline battlefield where two armies clash, but an indeterminate landscape stretching for miles on either side: craters, devastated forests, swarms of drones hunting for prey, undiscovered corpses and the occasional wounded soldier crying for help. It is the space between the lines of contact where life and death are decided in seconds. It is a borderland: a physical threshold between the occupied and the free, the visible and the invisible, where the state and the law are suspended in the mud, the remains of armored vehicles and the dead lying face up, writes El mundo.
In this new territory, approximately 20 kilometers wide, given the 10 kilometer range of FPV drones, you navigate the old-fashioned way – with a map and compass. GPS devices have stopped working due to the increasingly intense electronic warfare and can put you in a confusing location or lead you on a path that ends in enemy positions. If you’re walking, the drones can pick up your cell phone signal, so you should use airplane mode and connect to the Wi-Fi on the Starlink antenna only after you reach shelter. If you have a smart watch with internet access, leave it at the base because they can track you with it too. That’s why almost everyone here wears a Casio.
Maxim,Valery and Bogdan are a night drone pilot,a military gunner and a Mavic drone pilot – the observer. The three work together in the defeat zone with one of the most feared combat weapons of the Russians. Although its official name is Vampire,here it is called “Baba Yaga”,which means “witch”. They mounted it on the back of a pickup truck and it took two people to unload it. It’s an agricultural drone transformed into a night bomber capable of carrying four projectiles, which Valerie loads into the belly of the large black spider.
“I see the Russians running away in panic when someone detects our presence. This is a drone with astonishing precision that flies at night and that we can even use to deliver food and water to our comrades because it can carry 40 kilograms,” explains Maxim.
Black humor
They all have to enter the defeat zone to fly their drones, so they are subject to the same fear and danger as everyone else. “It’s like a job now.We’re used to it, but we can’t wait for it to be over. We can’t afford to get depressed. Our best weapon for this is our sense of humor. Jokes happen all day and they keep us going so we don’t collapse,” says Bogdan, who has been struggling for a year.
“There are also ground drones for these logistics deliveries and they will be used more and more,” says Maxim.
The case that best illustrates life and death in this destruction zone is that of two men. Taking advantage of thick fog, Sergeant Alexander Tishaev and Private Alexander Aliksienko of the 138th Ukrainian Battalion left their combat positions after 165 days of fighting (five and a half months spent in a hole). on October 28, they walked 12 kilometers to Orijiv, to the surprise of their own comrades. They are greeted like heroes: with shipwreck-worn beards, disheveled hair, bloodshot eyes, black nails, stiff uniforms, and badly healed wounds all over their bodies. They still have the strength to smile.Days later, Zelensky awarded them with the Military Cr