The terrifying new weapon changing the war in Ukraine

Above the city of Rodinke hangs a pungent odor. A few minutes after we enter the city, we see where it comes from.

A 250 kg of sliding bomb was torn through the main administrative building of the city and removed three residential blocks. We visit the day after the bomb impact, but parts of the remains are still smoking. From the ends of the city we hear the sound of artillery fire and from rifles – Ukrainian soldiers filming drones.

The birth is about 15 km (9 miles) north of the city city of Pokrovsk. Russia has been trying to capture it south since the fall of last year, but the Ukrainian forces have so far managed to stop Russian soldiers from marching.

Thus, Russia changed tactics by moving instead to surround the city, interrupting the delivery routes.

In the last two weeks, as the hectic diplomatic efforts to end the fire in Ukraine have failed, Russia has intensified its impetus, making its most significant progress since January.

We find proof of this in Rodinsk.

Minutes, when we arrived in town, we hear a Russian drone above us. Our team moves to the closest available cover – wood.

We press against it so that the drone does not see us. Then is the sound of a strong explosion – this is a second impact that has an effect nearby. The drone above us is still hovering. In a few more minutes, we hear the horrific vortex sound of what has become the most deadly weapon of this war.

When we can’t hear it anymore, we run the risk of running to a solid coating in an abandoned building 100 feet.

From the shelter we hear the drone again. It is possible to return after seeing our movement.

The fact that Rodinsk is sunk by Russian drones is proof that the attacks come from positions much closer than known Russian positions south of Pokrovsk. They are most likely to come from a newly established territory by key road, passing from east from Pokrovsk to Costantine.

After half an hour of waiting at the shelter, when we can no longer hear the drone, we move quickly to our car parked under the cover of the trees, and get to the rod. On the side of the highway, we see smoke that curves and something burning – the drone is most likely.

We drive to Bilitzke, far from the front line. We see a number of houses destroyed by a missile blow overnight. One of them was Svitna’s home.

“It’s getting worse and worse. We could hear distant explosions earlier. Fortunately, Svika was not home when the attack came.

“Enter the city center, you will see so much that it has been destroyed there. Both the bakery and the zoo are also destroyed,” she says.

In Safehouse, just out of the range of drones, we meet with soldiers from the artillery unit of the fifth attacking brigade.

“You can feel that the intensity of Russian attacks is increasing. Rockets, mortars, drones, they use everything they need to cut off the delivery routes entering the city,” says Sergi.

His department waits for three days to unfold their positions, waiting for cloudy cover or high -speed winds to provide them with drones.

In the constantly developing conflict, soldiers had to quickly adapt to new threats made by changing technology. And the most threat comes from optical drones. A spool of tens of kilometers of cable is attached to the pilot and the optical physical fiber cable is attached to the pilot.

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

When drones began to be used in this war in a great way, both military installed their vehicles with electronic war systems that could neutralize drones. This protection has evaporated with the arrival of optical drones, and when the deployment of these devices is currently an advantage. Ukraine is trying to increase production.

“Russia started using optical drones long before us while we were still tested. These drones can be used in places where we need to go more than the usual drones. We can even go home and look for whole inside,” says Venia, a drone with the 68th Jaeger brigade.

“We started joking that we may need to wear scissors to cut the cord,” says Sergi, the artillery man.

Optical drones have disadvantages – they are more slow and the cable can be tangled in trees. But at the moment, their widespread use by Russia means that transporting soldiers to and from their positions can often be more rated than the battlefield itself.

“When you enter a position, you do not know if you have been noticed or not. And if you have been noticed, then you may already live in the last hours of your life,” says Oles, the chief sergeant of the intelligence unit of the 5th attacking brigade.

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

Oles and his people are in the infantry serving in the trenches right in the very part of Ukraine’s defense. It is rare for journalists these days to talk to infantry, as it has become too risky to go to these trenches. We meet Oles and Maxim in a village home, turned into a makeshift base where soldiers rest when they are not located.

“The longest I spent the position was 31 days, but I know guys who spent 90 and even 120 days there. Before the drones arrived, the rotations could be between 3 or 7 days in the position,” Maxim says.

“War is blood, death, wet mud and cold that spreads from head to toe. So you spend every day. I remember one case when we didn’t sleep for three days, watch every minute. The Russians continued to come to the United States after a wave. Even a slight pass would mean that we were dead.”

Oles says Russia’s infantry has changed its tactics. “Earlier, they attacked in groups. Now they send only one or two people at times. They also use motorcycles and in several cases, four -legged bicycles. Sometimes they sneak.”

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

This also makes it difficult to see the progress made on both sides.

Despite Russia’s recent profits, it will not be quick or easy to take the entire Donetsk region, where Pokrovsk hides.

Ukraine pulled away strongly, but needs a steady supply of weapons and ammunition to keep the match.

And as the war enters the fourth summer, they are also obvious that Ukraine’s workforce against a much larger Russian army. Most of the soldiers we meet joined the military after the war began. They had several months of training, but they had to learn a lot about working in the middle of a raging war.

Maxim works for a drink company before joining the military. I asked how his family was dealing with his work.

“It’s hard, it’s really hard. My family really supports me. But I have a two -year -old son and I don’t see him much. However, I make a video that I’m calling him, so everything is as good as he may be in the circumstances,” he stops by doing tears.

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

Additional reporting from Imogen Anderson, Sanjay Gangly, Volodymyr Lozhko and Anastasiia Levchenko