It is just before dawn, the December temperature a couple of degrees above freezing; time for troop rotations to start across Ukraine's 750 mile front. A crew of four from Da Vinci Wolves battalion are loading up into an M113 armoured personnel carrier at a secret location ready to be driven out to a safe point. From there they will walk to their position and remain on the front for 10 or 12 days.
Russia has been adding rear-view cameras to some of its Shahed-type drones, allowing operators to see Ukrainian interceptors approaching from behind and take evasive action, a senior defense official told Business Insider. Lt. Col. Yurii Myronenko, Ukraine's deputy minister of defense for innovation, said Russia is "constantly testing" new deep-strike weapons, including modifying its Shahed-type drones and fielding new models. "Some Shaheds have already been equipped with rear-view cameras to detect and respond to our interceptors," said Myronenko, a former drone unit commander.
Lt. Col. Yurii Myronenko, Ukraine's deputy minister of defense for innovation, said that drones are responsible for strikes on roughly 90% of all targets struck on the battlefield and have made large-scale armor assaults extremely challenging. But drones alone are not enough to hold the line and stop the enemy from breaking through, he said. Dense fog and other inclement weather provide ideal cover for Russian infiltration tactics.
Zelensky's visit is part of a brief tour of his western allies that saw him seal an energy deal with Greece on Sunday and will include a visit to Spain on Tuesday. The Ukrainian leader has said that "a major deal with France" will be announced soon, but it was not known if that would be finalised in his talks with President Emmanuel Macron. The French presidency said Macron would "put French excellence in the armaments industry field at the service of the defence of Ukraine".
Russian drone attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, early on Sunday killed at least three people and wounded 29 others, according to Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko. The wounded included seven children, Klymenko said. Russian attacks also killed a 63-year-old man in the southeastern Zaporizhia region on Sunday and one person in the eastern Kharkiv region on Saturday night, the Kyiv Independent reported on Sunday, citing local officials.
In a report published this week, the commission said Russian forces, operating under a centralised command, had systematically used drones to intentionally target civilians and civilian objects and cause harm and destruction. The report was compiled by the UN's independent international commission of inquiry on Ukraine, an independent body that reports back to the UN. The latest report looked at three regions of Ukraine in particular Kherson, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk which are
From Kursk, North Korean units are using drones to conduct aerial reconnaissance missions over the neighboring Sumy region in Ukraine, identifying troop positions and supporting Russian follow-on strikes against identified targets, Kyiv said. Ukraine has "intercepted communications between North Korean drone operators and personnel of the Russian army," Kyiv shared in a statement published to the Telegram messaging app. It said that North Korean drone operators "adjusted the fire of multiple launch rocket systems against Ukrainian positions."
Every day I see cars that ran out of fuel and were left on the curb, Ayder, a resident of Simferopol, Crimea's administrative capital, told Al Jazeera. His car runs on natural gas, which is more available these days. There are long lines and fistfights at gas stations after a limit of 20 litres (5.3 gallons) per car was introduced, he said, withholding his last name out of fear of punishment for talking to foreign media.
My first strike was January 28th, 2013, at 6:49 in the morning. It ended up being a cave in the middle of nowhere, and there was a handful of people there that they wanted us to take out.
We also mourn the Ukrainian woman, Iryna Zarutska. She was brutally killed with a knife here in America, the very country where she was seeking refuge from Russia's war. And almost every day, when we open the news, we see headlines about violent attacks happening all around the world. Most of it is done with weapons. People are already used to it.
Here are the key events on day 1,296 of Russia's war on Ukraine. Here is how things stand on Friday, September 12: Anti-aircraft units downed seven Ukrainian drones headed for Moscow early on Friday, according to the Russian capital's mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Sosnivka in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, Russia's Defence Ministry said on Thursday.
Russian attacks killed four people and injured 10 in Ukraine's Donetsk region, Governor Vadym Filashkin said in a post on Telegram on Monday. Two people were killed and one person was injured as Russian forces launched 449 strikes on 17 settlements in Ukraine's Zaporizhia region, Governor Ivan Fedorov said. Ukrainian forces launched a massive drone attack on Russian-occupied Donetsk, killing two civilians, Russia's state TASS news agency reported, citing local officials.
US Army soldiers are tearing apart drones, printing out new parts, and flying their own creations into live-fire drills - a crash-course in the messy, fast-paced world of drone warfare. The Army has launched a sweeping push to weave drones into combat across the force. For now, that work can look improvised and experimental, with soldiers moving quickly and sharing feedback as they go. In line with the Army's significant transformation initiative, over the past nine months, the Bayonet Innovation Team of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, part of the Army's Southern European Task Force, Africa, has been building, flying, and reconfiguring drones. In exercises in Lithuania, Tunisia, and Germany, the brigade used first-person view drones to strike static and moving targets, 3D-printed parts to test new designs, and artificial intelligence-enabled software to refine tactics.
The Ukrainian military said on Thursday that it carried out a drone strike on a Russian warship capable of launching cruise missiles, marking the latest attack on Moscow's wounded navy. Ukraine's military intelligence agency, the HUR, said in a statement that it targeted a Buyan-M-class (or Project 21631) corvette operating in the Sea of Azov, a body of water that separates Russia from occupied Ukraine.
Earlier this month at a training exercise, 1st Lt. Francesco La Torre from the 173rd Airborne Brigade flew a first-person view drone carrying a Claymore mine into a fixed-wing uncrewed aerial vehicle, according to a new Army press release. La Torre piloted the drone towards the UAS as another member of his team armed and detonated the payload. Then La Torre looked up from his end-user device (EUD) and saw the fixed-wing drone fall out of the sky.
Every meeting, every minute this meeting continues is a great thing towards peace, right? However, my initial take is that Putin's word can never be trusted.
