NEAR POKROVSK, Ukraine — In a small town outside Pokrovsk, a city in eastern Ukraine under siege by Russia, a soldier guides an armored vehicle down a muddy, snow-swept lane. In the early winter darkness, lights flash on the horizon as the two armies trade artillery fire. In the driveway of a rundown house, two soldiers work quickly under the glow of headlamps, loading weapons from a shed into the back of a battered truck.
"They're going to take one of our drones into the field," says a 35-year-old military technician named Yurii. For security reasons, Yurii declines to be photographed and shares only his first name. He says he was a video game programmer before enlisting in Ukraine's army earlier this year.
Now he's part of a drone unit supporting Ukraine's 68th Separate Jaeger Brigade, which is charged with helping defend Pokrovsk. The strategic coal-mining city and transportation hub is partially encircled by a much larger force of Russian infantry and artillery. Fighting here began last spring and it's been bitter and costly to both sides.
But so far Ukrainian defenders have been able to hold out, in part because of the deadly effectiveness of Ukraine's drone pilots. Yurii's job is to build and repair some of the most lethal aerial drones flying over the battlefield. He watches as the crew lifts two of his five-bladed drones, the size of small lawnmowers, into the truck.
"They are not the newest technology but they are kind of our workhorse," he says of this model. Next.
