October 8, 2022 at 1:00 AM EDT
A Ukrainian soldier who goes by the name “Viter” carries a Leleka-100 drone about to be launched and carefully navigates a field Thursday in the Russian mine-strewn Kherson region of Ukraine. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
KHERSON REGION, Ukraine – The discovery was made by two Ukrainian soldiers staring wide-eyed at the screens of their laptops, installed in the trunk of their SUV. They sat on a makeshift bench, the large plastic box for their drone. What they were looking at was about 25 miles away, inside Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.
It was a Russian artillery battery located in a thin slice of tree. Drone operator Leonid Slobodian began counting out loud as he zoomed in and took screenshots of the findings. He saw at least five guns, trucks that probably had ammunition inside, and counter-battery radar. This was what the Ukrainian military calls a “fat” target.
Beside him, Oleksandr Kapli sent a voice message to members of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade who were also watching a live feed from the drone’s camera.
“We have to break this from front to back,” Kapli said into his phone.
Then the overwhelming response: “Send all the pictures and we’ll do it [mess] up.”
Drone video obtained by The Washington Post shows Russian forces under fire from Ukrainian artillery on October 6, 2022. (Video: Courtesy of the “Falcon” unit of the Kryvyi Rih Territorial Defense Forces )
Russian forces in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region are trying to hold the front line near the city of Dudchany after a strategic withdrawal along the western bank of the Dnieper River. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military is trying to retake even more ground before reinforcements from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mobilization arrive.
The “Falcon” unit of the Kryvyi Rih Territorial Defense Forces on Thursday allowed Washington Post reporters a rare look at a day of battle here through the lens of its Ukrainian-made Leleka-100 drone, which looks like a small gray plane. Moscow has more weapons than Kyiv, so attacks on “thick” targets — armored vehicles, ammunition stocks and artillery — like what the Falcon unit identified on Thursday are how Ukraine can weaken its enemy and advance.
In the Kherson region, where the terrain is flat with wide open fields, hiding such equipment from reconnaissance drones is a challenge for each side, a challenge that will only increase as the leaves fall and winter arrives .
On Thursday, the Falcon unit was able to see through the trees. He located the Russian artillery battery, helped Ukraine’s own artillery target it, and then watched as parts of it were destroyed.
“Our task is to determine how many reserves are coming, how strong these Russian fortifications are now and to track all the military equipment,” Kapli said. “Then we pass all that on to the artillery forces, and they bomb everything they can.”
Russian forces are now massing near the town of Mylove, Kapli said, to defend their stronghold in the occupied town of Nova Kakhovka on the opposite bank of the river. There, Moscow has seized a hydroelectric plant that controls a vital water supply to Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
The artillery battery that the Falcon unit saw was located near the neighboring village of Chervonyi Yar. A second drone flight confirmed the team was still in place, and Slobodian passed along more screenshots of the site, reading off its coordinates.
Neither he nor Kapli nor most of the rest of his unit had any combat experience prior to the full-scale invasion of Russia. Slobodian and Garry Wagner, who operates the drone with him, were cameramen for Ukrainian television stations before the war.
After collecting donations, Falcon commander Oleh Lyadenko in April purchased the Leleka drone, which can fly about 25 miles and stay in the air for two hours before it needs a battery change. Sometimes the 128th Brigade asks Falcon to check certain places, or to follow a column of Russian tanks to see where they are going. Other times, drone operators make their own findings.
The recent Russian withdrawal allowed the unit to advance into newly liberated villages and fly over territory previously out of range of its camera.
On Thursday, they launched their drone from a line of trenches that the Russians had used for themselves until this week. As the drone flew, some of the soldiers took careful steps through the neighboring countryside, firing at the still unexploded mines.
During one of the Leleka’s flights, they observed on the screen a second, longer line of trenches nearby. Two of the soldiers went to explore it and came back with souvenirs: baseball caps with patches of the Russian flag and a “Z,” the symbol of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The retreating Russians left behind crates of pear juice, which the unit has been drinking with smiles on their faces.
With the help of a Starlink satellite internet system, they worked from 8am until sunset. Around 2:45 p.m., they launched the drone for their penultimate flight of the day. Within minutes, he saw smoke on the horizon, near where they identified the enemy artillery battery for the 128th Brigade.
But as he got closer, Slobodian realized it was a line of neighboring trees. The Russians had also tried to hide their equipment there, and a different reconnaissance drone had spotted it. Ideally, that’s how it should work, Kapli said: one drone after another so coverage is never lost and more targets are scored. As long as something was burning, everyone in the unit was happy.
Falcon’s job now was to keep his camera trained on the area and confirm that the US-supplied artillery was hitting accurately as the shells landed along the tree line. Soldiers crowded around the computer screen and cheered as they watched the explosions unfold in real time.
“At least we have something to be happy about today,” Kapli said in a voice memo to his comrade in the 128th Brigade.
“Grilled meat,” Slobodian said as another explosion exploded across the screen.
Then a Russian Ural truck hit, creating a massive mushroom cloud over the site. It had been filled with ammunition. The men watching the screen also erupted. The enemy now had fewer shells to attack and fewer guns to fire.
“That was a nuclear explosion,” Kapli exclaimed with laughter. “We have been fighting for a long time, but an explosion like this, I have not seen.”
Slobodian rubbed his hands together. The “fat” position they discovered would be the following. The smoke rose again over the trees. At least one of the Russian 152 mm guns was damaged, they suspected. His drone was running low on battery and had to turn back, but the day had been a success.
On Friday, they had moved on to new targets, shooting an overhead video of a burning Russian tank next to a different field.
War in Ukraine: what you need to know
The last: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees on Friday to annex four occupied regions of Ukraine, following referendums that were widely denounced as illegal. Follow our live updates here.
The answer: The Biden administration announced a new round of sanctions on Russia on Friday in response to the annexations, targeting government officials and their relatives, Russian and Belarusian military officials and defense procurement networks. President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Friday that Ukraine is seeking “accelerated accession” to NATO, in an apparent response to the annexations.
In Russia: Putin declared a military mobilization on September 21 to call up up to 300,000 reservists in a dramatic bid to reverse the setbacks in his war against Ukraine. The announcement led to an exodus of more than 180,000 people, most of whom were conscripted men, and renewed protests and other acts of defiance against the war.
The fight: Ukraine mounted a successful counteroffensive that forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in early September, as troops fled towns and villages they had occupied since the first days of the war and abandoned large amounts of military equipment.
Pictures: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground since the beginning of the war; here are some of his most powerful works.
How you can help: Here are ways that those in the United States can support the Ukrainian people, as well as what people around the world have given.
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