Yogitarimei
BBC News
Donetsk Region, Rododynske report
Watch: BBC team escapes drone attacks in Ukraine
The smell hangs plagued by the town of Rojinsuke. A few minutes after driving into town, you know where it came from.
A 250kg glide bomb has passed through the town’s main management buildings, removing three residential blocks. They visit the day after the bomb attacks, but some of the wreckage is still smoking. From the edge of town, we hear the fire of cannons and the sound of gunfire. Ukrainian soldiers shoot down drones.
Rodynske is approximately 15 km (9 miles) north of the suffering city of Pokrovsk. Russia has been trying to catch it from the south since last fall, but Ukrainian forces have been able to stop Russian soldiers from marching up until now.
So Russia changed its tactics and instead moved to surround the cities and cut off supply routes.
Over the past two weeks, busy diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Ukraine have failed, and Russia has stepped up its push and made its most important progress since January.
Find evidence of that on Rodynske.
Within minutes of our arrival in town, we hear a Russian drone above us. Our team runs to the closest cover available – tree.
Getty Images
Fiber Optic Drones are a scary new danger at the forefront of Ukraine
We push it up so that the drones can’t see us. Then there is the sound of a big explosion – it is the second drone, which shocks nearby. The drone above us is still hovering. For a few more minutes, we hear the horrifying swirls of what has become the deadliest weapon of this war.
If you can’t hear any more, take the opportunity to run to hardcover in an abandoned building 100 feet away.
The drone can be heard again from the shelter. It could have come back after seeing our movement.
The fact that Rodynske is flocked to by Russian drones is evidence that the attack comes from a much closer position than the known Russian position south of Pokrovsk. They most likely came to Kostiantinivka from the newly captured territory of the main road running from the east of Pokrovsk.
After 30 minutes of waiting in the shelter, if the drone is no longer heard, quickly move to a car parked under the wooden cover and speed it out of Rodynske. Smoke is seen whirling around the highway, burning. It’s probably a downed drone.
Towns like Rodynske are now ruined by shells attacked by Russian air raids
You will drive to Biritske, far from the front line. You can see a line of houses destroyed by missile strikes all night. One of them was Svitlana’s house.
“It’s getting worse and worse. Previously, we could hear a distant explosion. They were far apart. But now our town is being targeted. We’re experiencing it ourselves,” the 61-year-old picks up some belongings from the wreckage of her house. Luckily, Svitlana was not at home when the attack occurred.
“If you go to the centre of town, there’s a lot of things that’s going to be destroyed there. The bakeries and zoos have also been destroyed,” she says.
In a safehouse, out of the reach of the drone, we meet soldiers from the artillery unit of the 5th Attack Brigade.
“You can feel the increased strength of Russian attacks. Rockets, mortars, drones, they use everything they need to cut off supply routes that enter the city,” Serhii says.
His units are waiting to unfold in a three-day position, with cloud coverings and high-speed winds waiting to provide protection from drones.
Serhii’s units had to wait for them to deploy to the frontline position due to the threat of drones.
In the ever-evolving conflict, soldiers had to quickly adapt to the new threat posed by technological changes. And the latest threat comes from optical drones. A spool of cables of tens of kilometers are mounted on the bottom of the drone, and a physical fiber cord is mounted on the controller held by the pilot.
“Video and control signals are transmitted to and from the drone via cables, not via radio frequencies, which means that they are not hindered by electronic interceptors,” says the Call Sign Moderator soldier, a drone engineer at 68th Jaeger Brigade.
When drones began to be used on a large scale in this war, both troops could have equipped electronic warfare systems on their vehicles, and neutralised the drones. That protection evaporates with the arrival of fiber optic drones, and Russia currently has the advantage in deploying these devices. Ukraine is trying to increase production.
“Russia started using fiber optic drones well before us. We were still testing them. These drones can be used where they need to be lower than regular drones. You can also enter your home and look for a target.”
“We started making jokes, maybe we should carry scissors and cut the cord,” says Serhiy, an artillery man.
Fiber optic drones have their drawbacks. They are slow and the cables can get tangled with the wood. However, at this point, their widespread use by Russia means that it is often possible that it will be more deadly than the battlefield itself to return and to its position.
Moderators work with Ukrainian fiber optic drones and use against invaders
“When you enter position, you don’t know if you were discovered or not. And if you were discovered, you may already be living the last time of your life,” says Ores, the top sergeant of the 5th Attack Brigade’s reconnaissance squad.
This threat means that soldiers are spending more and more time in their position.
Oar and his men are in infantry and serve at Trench, which is right on the frontlines of Ukrainian defense. It’s rare for journalists these days to talk to infantry. This is because it’s too risky to go to these trenches. We met Olds and Maxim in our country home. It will be converted to a makeshift base. There, the soldiers rest when they are not deployed.
“The longest I spent in that position was 31 days, but I know someone who spent 90 days there, and even 120 days. They could have gone back before the drone arrived and the rotation could have been three to seven days in that position,” says Maksym.
“War is blood, death, wet mud, cold that stretches from head to toe. This is how we spend our days. I remember one example of not sleeping for three days.
Olds says that Russian infantry changed tactics. “Previously they attacked in groups. Now they only send one or two people at times. They also use motorcycles, and in some instances they use quad bikes.
What this means is that the forefront of some parts is that the Ukrainians are similar to chessboard pieces while the Russians are playing on one side and the other is no longer a more traditional line when they can intertwin positions.
This makes it difficult to make progress on either side.
Despite Russia’s recent profits, it is neither quick nor easy to take away the entire Donetsk region where Pokrovsk is lying.
Ukraine pushed back violently, but to maintain the battle it would require a steady supply of weapons and ammunition.
And as the war enters the fourth summer, it is also clear that the issue of Ukrainian talent against the much larger Russian troops. After the war began, most of the soldiers we met joined the army. They had been trained for several months, but they had to learn a lot about their work in the middle of a fierce war.
Maksym worked for a drinks company before joining the military. I asked how his family would handle his work.
“It’s tough, it’s really hard. My family really supports me. But I have a two-year-old son. I can’t see him. I can’t call him.
Maksym is a soldier fighting for his country, but he is also the father of the loss of a two-year-old boy.
Additional reports by Imogen Anderson, Sanjay Ganguly, Volodymyr Lozhko and Anastasiia levchenko
