In this episode of Witness, our reporter went to the front in the east of the country, alongside Ukrainian soldiers. Drones have become essential, but cannot compensate for the cruel lack of artillery resources to counter the Russian army, in a deadly war of attrition.
In this episode of Witness, Valérie Gauriat went alongside Ukrainian troops in Donbass. A territory at the heart of a conflict which has transformed from a blitzkrieg into an ever more deadly war of attrition.
Hiding underground in their operating post, a unit specializing in drone attacks, within the 92nd Brigade, is preparing to launch an intervention. We are less than three kilometers from Russian positions, near the front in the Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine.
A battlefield defined by technologies
When the drone takes off, the maneuver is risky. Once primed, the charges sometimes explode upon takeoff.
“FPV drones are very important at the moment, because the efficiency is very high,” explains Olexandr, a drone pilot with the 92nd brigade. “We can fly over obstacles and hit hard-to-reach targets.”
The exercise is not simple. Subject to weather conditions or technical failures, they can also be spotted by Russian surveillance systems.
A major asset, drones cannot, however, replace artillery, which is seriously lacking in resources, insists the battalion commander. He calls on Western countries to urgently release more military aid.
The urgency of also strengthening the artillery
“Without artillery and without your ammunition, saving the lives of our soldiers and resisting the enemy will be very, very difficult,” says Yuriy, commander of the battalion. “That is why we are asking our international partners for a systematic provision of military aid. And what is important is to send it today for today, and not for seven months from now. Because when The enemy will understand that this will happen in seven months, He will build his response. And when we receive the necessary means on the front, we will not be able to implement an effective deoccupation of the territory, that is to say an operation of counter-offensive, because the enemy will be ready to take up the challenge.
The area is not safe. The soldiers ask us to leave quickly. You must follow the tracks dug by Ukrainian military vehicles to avoid mines.
Two years after the start of the Russian invasion, Donbass is still in the grip of fierce fighting.
The Drone Battalion command center, behind the front, coordinates all surveillance and drone attack operations of the 92nd Brigade. Six out of ten drones reach their target. But the technological advance of the Russians makes the situation more and more difficult on the battlefield.
“Unfortunately, the rate at which they improve their technologies is much faster, because they have more resources than us,” explains Anton, the commander.
“This makes life more difficult for infantry troops on the front. They are constantly under fire from attack drones, kamikaze drones, bomb drones. We have to find a way to counter this, it’s our challenge.
Having become electronic, war wreaks even more havoc. According to estimates, it killed some 100,000 soldiers and more than 10,000 civilians in two years. After the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive last summer, the war of attrition bogged down.
A building converted into a so-called “stabilization” center constitutes the first reception and care point for the wounded who arrive directly from the front, before being sent to the hospital.
An easily identifiable target, the center has been moved three times in the last two months. The caregivers received only a few minor injuries during our visit. They sometimes accommodate a hundred at the same time, and the operating room reserved for heavy cases is regularly saturated.
“We mostly see shrapnel injuries,” notes Artem, an anesthetist, often “caused by FPV drones, or shells dropped by drones. Drones define the battlefield now. The Russians are active on the entire front. And because of our lack of shells, we use very few of them. It’s this kind of thing that allows the Russians to operate in a more open, more aggressive manner. Because they know that there won’t be artillery strikes in retaliation for their actions.
We join one of the military medical evacuation teams from the Donetsk region. They operate at night, to avoid being caught under constant drone fire during the day.
Constantly on the alert, the team took advantage of a rare moment of respite that evening.
ADVERTISEMENT“It’s a good day for us,” smiles Roman Gasko, commander of the evacuation unit. “When we don’t have a lot of work, we are really happy. And we have time to read books and think about other things. But everything could change at once.”
“I’m not surprised that it lasts this long. But the hardest thing is that we don’t know how long it will last in general, when it will end. And that’s the biggest question, for everyone”.
All members of this unit have been at the front since the start of the Russian invasion. All lost loved ones in combat. But we must hold on, they say, for as long as it takes.
Uliana was a conductor in the Air Force. She joined the brigade to serve alongside her brother. He died on the front shortly before his arrival.
“Each of us has lost someone in this war,” says Uliana Sozanska, “because of those damn Russians. We have to hold on. We can’t go anywhere. This is our homeland, our country. We have to continue to fight us.”
ADVERTISEMENTIn two years, team members have only taken 30 days off.
On February 14, Valentine’s Day, the lucky ones were able to leave the battlefield to reunite with their loved ones. In the East, as everywhere else in Ukraine, war now punctuates the lives of civilians. Many are mobilized to support the army, like Svetlana, in charge of a laundromat made available to fighters, in the town of Constantinovka, not far from the front.
“A lot of guys report things to us from the front,” says Svetlana. “Their clothes are dirty, covered in mud, sometimes it’s blood, kerosene all kinds of fuel… It’s important for them to be able to enjoy a little here the life they miss, in an area where they escape everything they go through on the front, where they are bombed, where they die. They are here at the outpost, defending our land. They are defending our Ukraine. And if we can help them, we must do it”.
Having their clothes washed and repaired, a rare luxury for soldiers, and an opportunity for a little comfort.
“It really saves us time,” says Volodymir Antonyk, “which we need for other things, as you know. We must protect the motherland.”
ADVERTISEMENT“It helps that people are always friendly here,” confirms another soldier, Ihor. “They welcome us like friends, relatives. They are always helping, they offer us coffee, sweets. Psychologically, it also helps us.”
Everyone here knows Zoya. She was a veterinarian before the war. Armed with two sewing machines, today she repairs the tears in the uniforms handed to her by the soldiers, in a corner of the laundromat.
This petite woman, whose gentle smile covers infinite pain, lost her husband and her eldest son before the war.
His youngest son died last year at the hands of recruiters in the occupied city of Donetsk, for refusing to join the ranks of the Russian army. Zoya had to flee her town of Toretsk, bombed by Russian forces.
Seriously injured in the head by a shrapnel, she owes her life to the Ukrainian soldiers.
ADVERTISEMENT“An army surgeon sewed my head back together and saved me,” she says. “And since I survived, I want to help the military. I want to do my part to help win. My life now belongs to the military, and to my country.”
