It’s still dark as we
head towards Avdiivka.
The city is Russia’s
number one target on the
Ukrainian front lines.
We’re joining an
elite Ukrainian drone team.
We’ve had intelligence
that the Russians are planning to
send in 250 infantry soldiers
today to attack our positions.
We must stop their attacks
with kamikaze drones.
If we send our infantry in to stop them,
we’d lose a lot of people.
Thanks to technology,
we can prevent this and a
little piece of plastic carrying
ammunition can do our job.
Snow and ice as far as the horizon.
Kamikaze drones like these
cost just 1,000 dollars to make.
Cheaper and available -
unlike ordinary artillery shells.
Thanks to the many drones
constantly in the skies,
nothing is invisible
on the battlefield anymore.
When this war began
no one took these ‘toy’ drones seriously
- including Ukraine’s military leadership.
This has changed.
Soldiers on both sides
have learned to fear them.
The landscape is covered in bodies;
the Russians advance over their
own dead and sometimes
they even pretend to be dead.
We find them anyway.
They seem to be more scared
of their own commanders than of us.
There’s two of them
lying on the left-hand side.
Slow down, don’t rush.
Look at the middle of the screen.
No, that’s not the target,
what we need is those two.
Look, they’re over there.
We need one of you to take over.
It’s a clear hit.
Two Russian soldiers
caught out in the open.
Realizing the danger,
they pretend to be dead.
But it doesn’t help.
This war has proven that
all the old ideas and strategies for
fighting a war don’t work anymore.
The world is watching us and
realizing what still works.
But this war isn’t all just about high tech.
With temperatures fluctuating
around the freezing point,
the recent rain has
turned the road here into ice rinks.
Our jeep is just one of many
stuck on the wayside and even
the best winter tires
make little difference.
This Ukrainian artillery
unit has dug in near Bakhmut.
“What would Elon Musk make of it?”
soldiers ask us, laughing, as one
of many mice emerges
from behind one of Musk’s
Starlink internet terminals.
In an age of satellite connectivity
here on the front lines,
they’re still waiting for an
innovation to properly defeat rodents.
Given enough time
the mice nibble everything -
from sleeping soldiers’ fingers
to computer cables.
The cats we brought down here
all ran off.
They were too scared of the rats.
Sometimes a weasel comes by
and helps us out with the mice.
I don’t really mind the mice, they’re harmless.
At least it’s
some kind of distraction.
With Russian drones ever present
in the skies, this unit essentially
lives in this dugout -
unless they’re out firing at targets.
They spend their time here,
in their self-made bunker.
Of course, everyone is scared.
But most people find
a way to get used to it.
Those who don’t aren’t forced
to stay here but transfer
to other units.
There’s no criticism
of those who left.
Some of the men we meet here
used to serve in the infantry, just
a few hundred meters
from Russian positions.
They chose to come here
to the relative safety
of an artillery position.
The frustration with those
avoiding deployment entirely is stronger.
There’s no point sitting around
at home and saying you’re sick or
telling yourself
‘I wasn’t born to fight’.
No one is.
Everyone's going to have to fight
sooner or later, there’s no point
in hiding from the army.
You learn it all on the job
and if you don’t learn, war won’t forgive
you your mistakes.
After two years of war, many here
say the hardest thing isn’t even
the fear or the boredom -
it’s the uncertainty and the distance.
Every day down here these men
watch their children growing up without them
- thanks to their smartphones
and satellite internet.
Sometimes I’ll call my daughter
and ask her how school’s going.
‘Dad’, she’ll say, ‘it’s Saturday or Sunday.’
Down here you lose
track of time.
And no one can say
how many more days their country
will ask them to spend down here.