Ukrain

Ukrainian soldiers rose in the predator, extended, rubbed their eyes and rolled the sleeping bags in a basement on the basement near the confrontation line in the east of the country. Their day will not take them away. Most of them remained on the basement, worked with keyboards and drones control.

In an unstable moment for Ukraine, while the country is volatile between hopes that President Trump’s ceasefire talks will end the war and fears that the United States would withdraw military support, the soldiers were participating in an initiative from the Ukrainian army focusing on the drones that Kiev hoped to allow it to stay in the fighting of American weapons.

If the ceasefire talks fail, or the United States decides to stop arms shipments, the Ukrainian drone initiative is likely to take more importance than ever. The program, which is called the drone, doubles on drones that are collected in Ukraine, most of which are small drones that explode from the lower floor shelters.

On Monday, President Vladimir F. Putin from Russia to many uncertainty in the war by requesting a three -day ceasefire in Ukraine next month, indicating that it is a good gesture.

This announcement came a week after the unfamiliar war in Ukraine, including the bloodiest attack on Kiev, the capital, within about a year, and conflicting signals about what will happen after the Trump administration. President Trump has been less critical to the leadership of Ukraine in recent days, and instead he criticized Mr. Putin for his continued intention to Ukraine. But Mr. Trump is no longer more weapons, which are still decisive.

The drone program aims to help Ukraine to continue to launch the war, which is a reminder, again, with Ukraine’s ability to innovate, which helped it face its great enemy.

“The man is no longer against man,” said the captain of the team, who works from the basement in eastern Ukraine.

The group flies drones from the first width, which gives the pilot the equivalent video to the front -row seat while worrying about the bombs in Russian soldiers, cars, tanks, or hideouts. Watching with the military protocol, the leader asked to be recognized only by his first name and rank, ARTEM.

Even before the drone program, Ukraine was highly dependent on unmanned weapons, which now cause about 70 percent of all losses in the war on both sides, says the Ukrainian army – more than all other weapons combined, including tanks, Hoda, and mortar years. While these other weapons are partially provided by the United States, Ukrainians collect domestic drones from the components mostly made in China.

Extensive aircraft program, in business since last fall but was officially announced in February, is the Kiev B plan if it was to end the war, which started with the full invasion of Russia in 2022.

Done -sides are already constantly close to the battlefield. In a drone war, Russia has a feature of quantity, while Ukraine has a quality advantage, and it often becomes new technological methods. These aircraft include aircraft drones to extend the range of drones and drones with flawless and flawed fiber fiber threads.

The drone line talks were overwhelmed by the ceasefire talks and Mr. Trump’s evaluation of Ukraine’s chances without assistance in the United States. (“You don’t have cards,” he told President Voludimir Zelinski from Ukraine at a controversial oval office meeting.) But the deployment of the drone has already resulted in results, according to military analysts.

It has been partially credited with a three -month slowdown in the Russian attack in Ukraine. The Russian forces that rose forward in the past fall were in a virtual booth since January, despite the attacks on the Russian army.

The Russian attack reached its climax in November with the seizure of this month from 279 square miles of Ukrainian lands, according to Dibstati, an analytical group with relations with the Ukrainian army. In March, Russia seized only 51 square miles, and showed the group analysis. The main gain of Russia during the winter season was to expel Ukraine from all, or almost all of them, in the Kursk region inside Russia.

The Ukrainian program will fill in four drones to become drone, and expand each of about 700 soldiers to 2,500 armed soldiers with drones from the first person, others drop bombs, and unmanned ground systems. It includes the latest vehicles that are controlled by an armed dimension with machine guns.

All wars stimulate innovation, from the invention of radar during World War II to night vision glasses in Vietnam. But the drone strategy in Ukraine was also born from a major weakness in its army after more than three years of war: the flower motivation for the Ukrainians to join the army. Since the evasion project has become widespread, the renewal of power has become a challenge.

Drones do not replace soldiers. In fact, each flight from the first person of the first person can require up to four soldiers. For flights last week in northeastern Ukraine, a pilot drone, a navigator, an employee, and a drone.

But recruiting these parking is easier than finding pedestrian soldiers who will be served in trenches.

With a lower number of soldiers from Russia, Ukraine wants to reduce direct connections. This is where drones come.

The strategy focuses on the Earth belt about 18 miles behind the confrontation line in Russia. It can prevent the saturation of the airspace on this area with survey and drones from Russian soldiers from gathering for attacks. The drones, flying about 80 miles per hour, can outperform anything that moves on the ground.

“The fair evaluation is that it works,” said Michael Kaufman, a older -class colleague of the Gift of International Peace. He said that the shortage of Russian equipment and winter weather playing a role as well.

Mr. Kaufman said the goal is to design a power “that can close large parts of the forehead” and keep itself without help. However, Ukraine still deeply depends on the United States and European matters of air defense systems to defend cities against missiles far from the confrontation line.

Yuri Fedorinko, captain of Achilles regiment, said in an interview that the goal of the program is to expand over time, as drones with experience with soldiers in other units in an attempt to complicate Russian logistics, air defense and electronic warfare operations. “The idea is to cover the entire front line” with drones.

The Ukrainian army conducted a test last year when Republicans in the Congress stopped on an additional spending bill for Ukraine. Artillery ammunition fell to the extent that some crews fired only smoke shells. In one section of the front, near the city of Chasif Yar, the drone crew compensates for a wave of attacks that disrupted Russia’s attack.

The drones cost between 500 to 750 dollars each, that is, less than large -caliber artillery shells, which cost about 3000 dollars.

Other armies take note. This year, the US Marine Infantry squad formed the first drone attack team flying drones from the first person.

The private artem works with Achille regiment, one of the recently expanded units in the drone program. Like the fifth of all recruits in the regiment, he is a former computer programmer who worked in the use of external sources in Ukraine before the Russian invasion.

Although working on the cover is about three miles from the confrontation line, the drones crews do not spare the barbarism of the war or the danger.

On Friday, the Ukrainian crew caught a Russian soldier in the open, skipping on the green grass for the Oskil River flood. He was running for safety in a garden of trees. However, the final video feeding shown is close to camouflage, indicating that he did not make it.

Later in the day, the Ukrainian soldiers who put the outdoor drones remained out of view as a noisy Russian natural aircraft before they accelerated and collided nearly with a loud mutation.

Yuri Chevala It contributed to the reports from Kharkif, Ukraine.