Evading drones: airstrikes pursue Ukrainian troops and CNN team in crucial frontline zone

Every movement in the so-called “kill zone” poses a lethal risk in the open field. Here you face a much bigger opponent

The “Road of Life” – potholed, filled with burning vehicles and covered in nets to block drones – lives up to its name. A lifeline that resupplies Ukrainian troops on the toughest front lines, sometimes by robotic delivery, the asphalt section from Druzhkivka to Kostyantynivka is purely a matter of survival.

Ukrainian troops, often exhausted after months trapped in the same position, move almost exclusively on foot, passing the burned-out vehicles of those who chose to try to evade the drones with speed, rather than cower.

Drones now dominate warfare in Ukraine and the only protection against Russia’s endless stream of airstrikes is to hide in trees, shoot them down or, ultimately, wait for them to choose another, larger target – typically vehicles or military equipment.

This is a technological shift that has reconfigured modern warfare and, at least for now, given Ukraine leeway against a much larger adversary. But for troops operating in the so-called “kill zone,” which stretches for miles along the front lines, every move in the open field poses a lethal risk.

The CNN team drove along a small section of supposedly safer road between two Ukrainian positions, accompanied by Kosta, Sasha and Bohdan of the 24th Mechanized Brigade. The walk, which was supposed to take an hour each way, turned into a five-hour ordeal, with at least 14 attacks or close encounters with Russian drones.

The first attack came quickly, just after a rare pair of tanks passed by. The drone of drones above, followed by gunfire, causes the surrounding forest and damaged houses to come to life as hidden Ukrainian troops fire into the sky. It’s a signal to run to a courtyard, while our companions try to identify a target to shoot in the gray, cloudy fog above.

On the road, outside, Sasha and Kosta are more daring, shooting in the open. And they hit the target, the thud of the drone’s explosive charge resonating on the asphalt, about 150 meters away. We need to keep moving, as others may follow us.

Drone warfare subverts frontline norms. Armored vehicles are priority targets and a vulnerability. Groups of troops are targets. The protection networks that cover so many roads in the eastern region of Donbas – preventing the passage of drones – are not allies here, but rather a limitation to circulation. When we hear a drone, we must run into the vegetation, where we can hide and they cannot fly. We enter through the protection nets and find, or cut, a hole to get to the forest.

Dodging drones also reverses the human instinct to seek safety in groups. We have to separate, run away from each other, because being alone makes us less interesting to a Russian attack pilot. A radio alert sends our team running into the vegetation again, the buzzing overhead, gunshots echoing everywhere.

After an hour, the omnipresent drone of the drone becomes difficult to distinguish – is it impression or imagination? The senses don’t relax, but it’s difficult to maintain the same concern for each drone noise as in the first few minutes.

Our encounters with drones often end with the explosion of one crashing near us. It is unclear who shot him, where he was going or if he was alone. But the need to move eliminates any time to process information.

A drone flies right above our heads. Sasha and Bohdan’s shots – shotguns from a distance and a shotgun at close range – knock him down. The damaged propellers hum ominously as it crashes onto the road, sending our companions running for cover. The device hits the asphalt, without an explosion. It could have been a reconnaissance device, but it was circling – a typical pattern for a Russian attack. Sasha picks up the smoking debris and throws it into the vegetation, clearing the road for any tire that dares to pass that way.

We passed the charred wreckage of a pickup truck, hit two days earlier, in which one of the unit’s lieutenants, Roman, was killed. We met a group of exhausted soldiers on the front line, coming off weeks of even greater hell – where drones infested their trenches with deadly effect, Russian troops launched attacks, and artillery continued to bombard their shelters.

They look frail as they walk, their supplies carried by a small robotic truck, some covering their dirty faces with their arms to avoid the camera.

Sasha and Bohdan stop for 30 minutes at their destination – another bunker, a few minutes’ drive from where we started – for tea and water.

Inside is Afina, the code name of a 25-year-old technical operator, who enlisted in the army before the war and did not expect it to become so dependent on drones and robots, technology that Ukraine hastily adopted to fill a serious manpower crisis. “I didn’t expect anything like this,” he admits to CNN. “It’s hard. Over time, you get worn out by it all. But you get used to it. You realize you have to do it.”

We emerge to begin the arduous walk back, and another volley of gunfire erupts, shooting down several drones that were lying in wait. During the return, several drones crash into the road around us, shrapnel clanking, as they try to hit speeding cars and armored personnel carriers.

It is relentless, exhausting, but, interestingly, a time when Ukraine’s dexterity and rapid adaptation gave it the advantage – staying on its feet, automating some tasks, investing heavily in technology and watching the enemy waste its human resources on ineffective and horrific ground attacks.

Kiev may not be winning the war, but it is no longer losing, and resisting in places like the “Road of Life” may be enough to make Russia retreat.