During an emergency evacuation operation in Hirnyk, a village located in Eastern Ukraine, a sudden call for emergency support intercepted Vasyl Pipa’s radio signal; only minutes into their 15km hasty journey. Swinging his vehicle back, he spotted Danylo Zakharchenko, the volunteer of the mission, yanking an unconscious Tigran Galustyan from a shattered windscreen and behind the steering wheel through the smoke. Galustyan had been hit when a drone from Russia pierced the roof of his armoured vehicle. Pipa rushed Galustyan to the closest first-aid station in his van, but his life could not be saved. Aged 37, the deceased had hundreds of evacuation missions under his belt and is survived by his young girl.
Galustyan was the casualty of a drone strike, a game-changer in Eastern Ukraine’s battlescape and possibly altering modern warfare as we know it. Not only do these drones horrify tens of thousands of residents still dwelling near the front lines, but also volunteers and emergency personnel try to offer their help.
The footage of the strike posted by a Russian team showed a first-person-view (FPV) drone, a fast, agile, bomb-laden quadcopter, probably controlled from several kilometres away. A pilot likely guided the drone directly to the van using live video feed from the drone. The tool’s relatively low cost belies its potency: these drones which cost just a few hundred euros, have an airstrike capacity of more than 10 km and hold shells strong enough to cripple even a tough tank, let alone light-armoured vans like the one driven by Galustyan, the sort used by many evacuation teams.
Pipa, helming another similar van as the leader of a police evacuation team in the Donetsk region, known as the White Angels, had German reporters onboard, who had been covering their mission to Hirnyk, along with their Ukrainian field producer, Artem Pribylnov.
The nature of the war has shifted drastically due to these drones. “Evacuating people would still be reasonably safe in the absence of these drones,” reflects Pribylnov, who frequently operates near a shifting front line as Russia’s armed forces continue their westward advance. An FPV drone is dramatically more precise than a cannon or mortar round which couldn’t possibly target a moving car accurately at 140km/h; not even a trained sniper could.
The potency of the ammunition that they possess is significant. Given the likelihood of encountering a fortified automobile on this route, the Russians ensure that the FPV is laden with anti-tank ammunition with capabilities to breach armour.
There is a plethora of evidence strewn across various social media platforms indicating that not only designated evacuation vehicles but even unassuming civilian automobiles often fall prey to the Russian drone units when found in the proximity of the front line. A case in point was when, a few days after Galustyan’s unfortunate demise, Pipa’s squad came across an old Lada, marred by a gaping hole directly above the deceased driver’s seat.
Drone assaults have unfortunately become a quotidian threat to rescue groups like the White Angels. While Pipa’s vehicle does have a signal interference system installed, some drones are cunningly built to automatically change frequencies to outsmart a blockage.
Russian drone units have been seen to lay waste to any potential target on the mostly vacant roads in regions like Hirnyk, without differentiating between a military vehicle or a civilian automobile. According to Pribylnov, this is a planned attempt to snap Ukrainian Army’s supply chain whilst simultaneously sowing fear in the remnants of the district’s civilian population. That said, Ukraine is accused by Moscow of using similar tactics in Russian border regions.
In Kherson province in Southeastern Ukraine, Russian drone operators lodged on the occupied eastern side of the Dnipro river are accused of blatantly terrorising civilians inhabiting the Kyiv-governed regional capital on the western bank, where the population is over 60,000.
Serhiy Nikitenko, Editor-in-Chief of leading Kherson media platform Most, notes that, “there have been 3,500 drone assaults over the last month on the city of Kherson and other parts of the region’s right bank, accounting for over 100 strikes per day. The brunt of these attacks is borne by civilians, with the police and fire departments occasionally targeted and military attacks being nearly negligible.”
The situation worsened over the summer, with a terrifying amplification in the drone raids, typically executed using bomb-dropping drones. Videos showcasing drones relentlessly tracking civilians and wreaking havoc with bomb droppings on pedestrians, automobiles, and cyclists were aired by the Russians. Nikitenko asserts that this amounts to sheer terror.
“It’s inhumane. About a third of the city is surveilled by these drones, causing streets to practically empty. It serves no military purpose. The casualties are primarily the elderly, who lack the agility to evade the drones, causing fatalities and injuries,” he condemns.
Russia gained control of Kherson for an eight-month period at the commencement of their comprehensive assault on Ukraine in 2022, repeatedly bombarding it with shell and missile fire. However, Nikitenko reveals that the drone assaults, which near noiselessly to cause death and injury, generate exceptional dread: “It’s sufficiently dreadful now, with trees still bearing leaves. But in around four weeks, the foliage will be scarcer, potentially escalating the severity of the situation.”