Inside Ukraine’s Drone War (Documentary)

Road to Donbass, the fortress of Eastern Ukraine. Covered with nets to stop the small, deadly Russian drones. The new feature of this ongoing war. We are embedded with a group of medics who are on their way to a dangerous mission. To evacuate the number of Ukrainian casualties. I wanted to do the best I can to do my mission in this war. And when they are dying, I just, I have a moment when I think, for what? They have wives, they have girlfriends, they have parents, and they had their life, their purpose in life. Benteshna's mission for today is done. Now the lives of wounded soldiers are in the hands of medics in this field hospital. Somewhere safer. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is entering its fifth year, with no clear signs of an end on the horizon. Ukrainians are struggling with manpower to fill their trenches. Here at this training ground, a group of new recruits are learning how to face their enemy. They learn how to use their weapons, move about, aim and shoot. Trench and, of course, how to protect themselves from these deadly birds. Pashut is a battle-hardened trainer. He's been fighting Russia for the past ten years, long before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I've been in the war since 2015. I can't even imagine what I'm going to do when the war is over. He believes drones have changed the way both sides fight. When there were no drones, it was more or less a time of war. And now they're shooting at the roofs, hitting the sky. The sky is covered with hay. If it weren't for the shahids, it would have been a completely different war. We would have killed them long ago. We've seen this in action. More than a year ago, we were embedded with a drone unit of the 3rd Assault Brigade. They were positioned somewhere in Donbass, not far from the Russian trenches. We had to rush into the trenches to not be spotted by the Russian drones. Weeks earlier, Russian troops were based here before it was taken by the Ukrainians. Some of their leftovers can still be seen in the bushes. Sasha is constantly watching for enemy movement on the other side of the front line, or in no man's land. Below, the land is marked with scars from artillery shells fired by both sides. A reminder of how brutal this war has become. In the background, an artillery fire can be heard every few minutes. Sometimes loud enough that you have to check around you to feel comfortable, to feel safe. We've got contact. Do we need to change the device? I think we're good to go. What about the camera? Did you connect the drone? Another drone, another mission. These commercial drones have transformed the concept of the battlefield. Both sides of the conflict rely heavily on them for surveillance and for assaults. Two guys are approaching him. Yes. I don't know, I'm not saying it's a 120mm, but there's a real gun here. He's just demonstrating a drone that can drop an explosive. Simple and deadly. Misha and the other members of this unit are flying these drones day and night. ... As the Russian shelling intensifies, we must evacuate to the command center a couple miles behind these trenches. Here drone operation makes more sense. What the drone unit captures can be seen live here. The coordination of the enemy positions is then passed to the artillery unit for precise strikes. This creates a triangle between the drone unit, the command center, and the artillery unit. The drone unit is 200 percent. Drones are the most effective story in our war, because without them, you know, all reconnaissance, adjustment, detection, and everything happens purely by means of drones. It has even grown to the point that you can immediately be a faggot with drones. The same drones and kamikazes. Now it's purely a war of drones, and this is purely a consumable material that is constantly being killed, and we need to recover. Drones are... It's all the same. Faggots have a job to go to the same China. The same way they are packed with drones, the same way they adjust drones, well, that's it. They even have more development in terms of reconnaissance. A few miles behind the command center is where the artillery unit is operating. They're constantly on the move. You can see blue sky and yellow sunflowers. It's the colors of our flag. The main goal of our division is the destroy of enemy artillery, because we have M-777. It's a precision cannon, and it helps us to kill the Russians who came to our land. For fear of Russian FPV drones, they must change their locations after a few rounds of shelling. It's a cat-and-mouse game for both sides. Without drones, this would have been conventional warfare, but not anymore. Drones have changed the concept of war for good. These days, this kind of drone attack footage is circulating on the internet, showing how both Russians and Ukrainians use drones to their maximum capacity. It is sometimes frightening enough to be used as a propaganda tool to demoralize enemy soldiers. At the same time, this footage shows the dirty side of war from an angle we have hardly seen before. Ukrainians came up with the idea of covering roads with nets to stop small FPV drones. But this has not prevented Ukraine from losing more territory to the enemy. Do you disagree that you've had problems? In recent months, pressure from Washington on Kiev has increased. To come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country? A lot of questions. Let's start from the beginning. First of all, during the war, everybody has problems. Even you. But you have a nice ocean. And don't feel now. But you will feel it in the future. God bless. God bless. God bless. You will not have a war. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. The new US administration is keen on striking a deal with Vladimir Putin. And they have proposed an agreement that would require Ukraine to give up nearly 20% of its territory to Russia. A deal that is very hard for Ukraine to swallow. Ukrainians have endured several difficult winters. Many towns and villages in the east have been partly destroyed, flattened and evacuated of civilians. On the other hand, ahead of each round of diplomacy, Russia has intensified its drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Here's the impact of a missile strike on a neighborhood in Krematorsk, a Ukrainian stronghold in the Donetsk region. The missile hit a park in the middle of a neighborhood without any casualties. Still frightening enough to force some of the remaining civilians to leave. Near the impact site, people were waiting for humanitarian aid when the deafening noise of a Shahid drone approaches. Before we have time to take cover, it reaches the area where we are. And a few seconds later... A few minutes later, after the first drone attack, a second one follows. In what is known as a double tap. While people are still in shock, the third kamikaze drone strikes the same location. Same civilian area, within seven minutes, with no military presence whatsoever. The next day we learn that one person was killed, an elderly man. The burial takes place in a civilian cemetery of Krematorsk. Only four family members are present, along with a priest, a nun and a gravedigger. This war has made human life so cheap that many no longer bother to count. But why is Russia so keen to capture Krematorsk? The city is one of three in the Donetsk region that together earned the nickname the Donbass Fortress Belt. A fortified strip of land that forms the backbone of Ukraine's defense in the east. The initial US-led proposal calls for Kiev to surrender this fortress belt to Russia. Ukraine's leaders say they cannot accept this, as too much blood has been shed to hold it. The cemetery of Krematorsk stands as a silent witness to that sacrifice. If the Ukrainian leaders were to give out the occupied territories to Russia, if these territories could simply have been given up earlier, many would look to their leaders and ask, what for? What did so many Ukrainians die for?