📝 🇺🇦 🇷🇺 Inside Ukraine’s Kill Zone

It’s a new kind of war. In the “kill zone” of Ukraine, surveillance and attack drones swarm the skies, hunting anything that moves.

There’s no more massing of troops and artillery. Instead, soldiers on both sides hide for months at a time in tiny, isolated foxholes to survive.

Soldiers move in small groups to dodge detection, often on foot or motorbike. Even then, the drones hunt them mercilessly. Casualties are staggering.

How far the kill zone extends at any given stretch of the front depends on numerous factors, including the quality of the drone units there and the landscape. The days of heavy mechanised manoeuvres are over; a drone costing a few thousand dollars can disable a tank worth millions. Long trenches open to the skies have become obsolete. Fibre optic cables trailing behind drones settle upon the landscape like spider webs.

Russian forces mainly gain territory by infiltrating Ukraine’s porous defences. Low cloud and heavy fog can act as cover. Ukraine does not have enough soldiers, so its infantry is thinly scattered, leaving wide gaps to sneak through.

A deputy battalion commander in Ukraine’s 59th Assault Brigade, with the callsign Prime, described relentless pursuits: “If a drone spots an infantryman, it won’t let him go.”

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/KILL-ZONE/znpnojmknvl/

— 🇺🇸/🇮🇷 NEW: ‘Early in the war, if an Iranian missile launcher was struck by U.S. forces, it would take Iran 15 hours to make it operational again. Now, they are able to fire missiles at U.S. bases in less than 30 minutes’ – The Telegraph

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