A terrifying new weapon that changes the war in Ukraine

ACRID is hanging over the city of Rodynske. After a few minutes of driving to the city, we see where it comes.

The GLIDE bomb, which has an area of ​​250 kg, exploded through the main administrative building of the city, and raised three residential blocks. We visit one day after hitting the bomb, but parts of the debris still smoke. From the edges of the town, we hear the sound of artillery fire, and the fiery shots – the Ukrainian soldiers fall drones.

Rodynske is located about 15 km (9 miles) north of the besieged city of Boukrovsk. Russia has been trying to capture it from the south since the fall of last year, but the Ukrainian forces have so far been able to prevent Russian soldiers from walking.

So Russia changed the tactics, instead moved to cordon off the city and cut off supply routes.

In the past two weeks, with the failure of the hectic diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine, Russia has increased its payment, which made its most important progress since January.

We find evidence of this in Rodynske.

Within minutes of arriving in the city, we hear a Russian drone over us. Our team runs to the nearest available cover – tree.

We press against it so that the drone does not see us. Then there is a high explosion sound – it is a second effect on a drone nearby. Drones are still hovering. For another few minutes, we hear the terrifying voice of what became a bloody weapon in this war.

When we cannot hear it anymore, we seize the opportunity to run to the difficult cover in an abandoned building 100 feet.

From the shelter, we hear the drone again. It is possible that he returned after seeing our movement.

Rodynske is moved by Russian drones is evidence that the attacks come from sites much closer to the well -known Russian parking spaces to the south of Boucrovsk. They probably come from the newly captured lands on a major road that runs from the east of Boucrovsk to Kostyantynivka.

Half an hour after waiting in the shelter, when we cannot hear the drone anymore, we move quickly to our parked car under the cover of the trees, and quickly rushes from Rodynske. On the side of the highway, we see smoke rising and something burning – it is likely to be a drone.

We are driving to Bilytske, away from the front lines. We see a row of houses that were destroyed by a missile strike overnight. One of them was the home of Svetlana.

“It has become worse and worse. Fortunately, Svetlana was not at home when the attack took place,” says 61 -year -old.

“Go to the city center, you will see a lot that has been destroyed there. The bakery and the zoo were also destroyed,” she says.

In a safe house away from the reach of drones, we meet the artillery unit soldiers in the Fifth Attack Brigade.

“You can feel an increase in the severity of Russian attacks. Missiles, mortar shells, drones, they use everything they must cut to cut off the supply methods to enter the city,” said Sirhi.

His unit was waiting for the publication of three days on its locations, waiting for the cloud cover or high -speed winds to give them protection from drones.

In a constantly developed conflict, soldiers were forced to adapt quickly to the new threats posed by technology change. The last threat of fiber drones comes. A reel of dozens of cable from the cable to the bottom of a drone is installed and the physical fiber cord is connected to the pilot control unit.

“The video signal and control to and from the drone are transferred via the cable, not through radio frequencies. This means that no electronic objections cannot be confused.”

When drones began in this war significantly, each of the armies installed their cars with electronic warfare systems, which could deviate drones. This protection evaporated with the arrival of optical fiber drones, and in the deployment of these devices, Russia is currently enjoying the edge. Ukraine is trying to increase production.

“Russia has begun to use optical fiber drones in front of us, while we were still testing them. These drones can be used in places where we have to go less than usual drones. We can even enter homes and search for targets at home,” says Venia, a drone with brigade 68.

“We have begun to joking that we may have a scissors to cut the rope,” says Sirhi, an artillery man.

Fiberial fiber drones have defects – they are slower and the cable can be intertwined in the trees. But at the present time, its wide use by Russia means that the transfer of soldiers to and from their positions can be more beneficial than the battlefield itself.

“When you enter a site, you do not know whether you have been monitored or not. If you are monitored, you may actually live in the last hours of your life,” says Oliz, the chief sergeant in the reconnaissance unit of the Fifth Attack Brigade.

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

Ols and his men in pedestrians, and they serve in trenches directly at the front of the defense of Ukraine. It is rare for journalists to speak these days to pedestrians, as it has become very risky to go to these trenches. We meet Oliz and Maxim in a country house that was converted into a temporary base, where the soldiers come to rest when they are not in publication.

“The longest spent in this position was 31 days, but I knew the men who spent 90 to 120 days there. Once again before the arrival of drones, the courses could have ranged between 3 or 7 days in this position,” Maxim says.

“The war is blood, death, wet clay and cold that spreads from head to the soles of the feet. This is the way you spend every day. I remember one case when we did not sleep for three days, in the event of alert every minute. The Russians continue to come in our wave after a wave.

Ulyse says that Russia’s pedestrians changed its tactics. “Earlier they attacked in groups. Now they only send one or two people at times. They also use motorcycles and in a few cases, quad bicycles. Sometimes they slide.”

What this means is that the front lines in some parts are no longer traditional lines with the Ukrainians on one side and the Russians on the other hand, but more like cutting on the chess panel while playing, where parking can be linked.

This also makes it difficult to see the progress made by either side.

Despite Russia’s recent gains, it will not be easy or easy to take the entire Donetsk region, as Boukrovsk lies.

Ukraine has pushed back strongly, but it needs a fixed supply of weapons and ammunition to keep the battle.

As the war entered the fourth summer, the labor force in Ukraine against a Russian army is much larger as well. Most of the soldiers we met to the army joined after the war began. They had a few months of training, but they should learn a lot in the job in the middle of a raging war.

Maksym worked in a beverage company before joining the army. I asked how his family adapts to his job.

“It is difficult, it’s really difficult. My family really supports me. But I have a two -year -old son, and I cannot see him a lot. I am contacting him though, so everything is fine as much as it can be under these circumstances.”

Maksym is a soldier fighting for his country, but he is also just a father losing his two -year -old.

Adogen Anderson, Sanjay Gangly, Volodymyr Lozhko and Anastasiia Levchenko