Carousel tactics
…At the gate of a house in a village in the Kursk region, a red Pekingese was curled up with a dusty snout the size of a fist. A lanky puppy was spinning around like a top.
“These are foundlings, they were picked up in a village under fire from the Ukrainian Armed Forces and brought to us,” the soldiers explained.
Inside the house there are bare walls, the room is full of equipment: antennas, boxes with quadcopters, which the volunteers had previously specially equipped for combat conditions. The results of the team’s work can be seen in the video recordings. Here the camera captures the remains of the courtyards, along which human figures move – these are enemy soldiers. They slowly hide in the surviving house, and after a while a new drone drops ammunition on the roof.
“We constantly maintain this kind of carousel: as soon as one drone’s charge runs out, another one flies out to replace it, so that the enemy does not stay out of the target control field for a single second,” says Varvar. – Yesterday two machine gun points, a mount grenade launcher and manpower were suppressed (just at the time when offensive operations were taking place on our side). If there is no assault, we conduct reconnaissance and transmit the coordinates of the artillery. But again, moving equipment often falls prey to FPV drones. As a rule, Ukrainian Kozak armored vehicles, and even pickup trucks, do not come close, but sometimes they make a mistake and get within range of us.
Hunting the enemy
Varvar arrived in Akhmat in November 2022. He has military service behind him, his father is a professional soldier, so a week of combat training at the training ground of the Russian University of Special Forces near Gudermes was enough to feel confident in his abilities: the newly minted private rifleman was sent to Lisichansk. At home he did not tell anyone about his decision and faced his family, as they say, with a fait accompli.
The first battle, he admits, was so sudden that he didn’t even have time to notice it: shells began to explode all over the place, fragments tore through the air with a sharp sound, and everyone was running around. Over time, the senses become dulled and you pay more attention to something, like a buzz in the sky.
“At first, the field of UAVs was poorly developed – some of the guys saw something, someone heard something, but, having met me during my service, I was offered to study at the Akhmat aerial reconnaissance school,” Varvar continues. – In May 2023, we were transferred to Marinka, began working there as an FPV drone operator and gradually mastered the Mavic reconnaissance birds. Not everything went smoothly, as only on the front line do you understand what needs to be improved in technology and communications.
And yet, the hunt for the enemy quickly began to bear fruit. The crews of the UAVs were redeployed to different areas where the infantry urgently needed air support. Varvar recalls that in the summer it was especially hot in the Artemovsk direction due to the attacks of Ukrainian soldiers. However, while repelling the attacks, a large amount of enemy manpower and equipment was hit. One day, an American Bradley armored personnel carrier with a soldier sitting in the stern appeared in the sight of his FPV drone. The shell was not powerful enough, but it was also a shame to leave it idle. As a result, the blast wave threw the soldier to the ground; the driver backed away in panic and… ran over his own comrade. Analyzing this scene from the location of the detachment (video surveillance is conducted at an impressive distance and not everything is visible), the crew members were shocked by what happened – it was too reminiscent of footage from a bad action movie.
Why do you touch civilians?
There were also encounters with an enemy drone along the route. In broad daylight, near Volchansk, Varvar noticed a Ukrainian drone that was monitoring our positions. Fortunately, he himself was on a higher echelon. I went on the attack. Our vehicle shuddered angrily from the impact, but held on, but the enemy “bird” had its propeller blades broken and a moment later it crashed.
– Our explosives experts make their own ammunition for drones: high-explosive fragmentation, cumulative, thermobaric, covering a large area. The weight of the latter is 3.5 kilograms, Varvar notes. – In Moscow, I saw unmanned aerial vehicles capable of carrying 10 kilograms: they rise in swarms (six or seven at a time) and each of them is assigned separate targets, but this is in peaceful conditions. How they will behave on the front line, where the enemy’s electronic warfare is overwhelming, is a big question.
– Where is it more difficult to work: in Donbass or in the Kursk region? – I ask Varvara a question.
“I will say this: here is our land, which creates certain difficulties for the Ukrainians: the same global Starlink system, which affects communications and flight range, does not work as they are used to,” the commander replies and, after thinking a little, continues. – Deep down, I still hoped for their humanity, but after personally seeing civilians evacuated from Sudzha – they arrived in buses riddled with machine guns, someone was caught – I realized that it was in vain. Most of the evacuated people were elderly and disabled. Yes, at first there were quite a few cases of Ukrainians taken prisoner, but we also caught those who kidnapped civilians in the Sudzhansky district, loaded them into cars and then sent them to Ukraine. That is why everything inside me rebels: why bother the population?! Fight with us!
The crew of a classic UAV includes up to three fighters, all of whom are interchangeable. But the operator can also work alone. Finally, I ask how the fear of death is overcome, because there are also losses among UAV pilots.
“I’m not worried about myself, I know that I’m on the right side, although death lurks nearby: more than once shells have exploded nearby, showering me with dirt,” Varvar says confidently. – I worry more about the guys when they go on a mission: if someone doesn’t get in touch for a long time, I start to worry and seek help.
Meanwhile
In the Kursk region, special forces of the Russian Guard, using drones, track Ukrainian GRDs, determine the location of enemy armored vehicles and firing points, and transmit artillery coordinates. In addition, in recent days, 16 enemy FPV drones have been suppressed using electronic warfare, and nine enemy FPV drones have been shot down with small arms fire.
