Inside Ukraine’s Kill Zone, Where Drones Hunt Everything That Moves

In the summer of 2025, I tried to sleep through a Russian bombardment in Kyiv. For hours, drones and missiles pounded the city. Outside my window, streaks of air-defense fire lit up the sky as Ukrainian forces chased hundreds of Russian drones overhead. Then my building shook from a nearby strike. The night was sleepless with the sound of Shahed drones buzzing loudly. By morning, I was leaving for the front with the Dignitas Ukraine team, including its co-founder and CEO, Lyuba Shipovich.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Over the following weeks, I met Ukrainian robotics units, watched frontline missions, and later spent time embedding myself with a drone team operating inside the kill zone, the stretch of terrain behind the front where drones hunt anything that moves. I saw how drones are changing the war. I also felt how quickly war ages a person. Ryan Van Ert, a filmmaker from Los Angeles, joined part of my journey. I had met him through Alina Holovko, a friend who helps run Dobra Sprava, a volunteer group that brings aid to frontline communities and evacuates civilians. Ryan had come to Ukraine to film the war and tell its stories. We first worked together near Druzhkivka, on the Donetsk front, in December 2024. “My motivation to come to Ukraine began with the shock of the full-scale invasion,” said Ryan. “As a filmmaker, I’m always searching for powerful stories.” After that trip, we stayed in touch. Ryan wanted to return to the front with me. Other Topics of Interest From Shaheds to Sabotage: How Iran Could Retaliate Against Ukraine After Tehran warned that a deadly Ukrainian strike on an Iranian vessel “cannot go unanswered,” experts told Kyiv Post that retaliation will likely take place. The only question is what. I do not think either of us understood what that would mean. When we eventually returned together, Ryan and I traveled with Shipovich and Stepan Nehoda of Dignitas to meet robotics units and soldiers from the 63rd Mechanized Brigade on the Lyman front. Ryan joined for only part of the trip, but he saw enough: mechanical medics, logistical ground robots, and the strange new shape of a battlefield where ground robots, also known as unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), now move through spaces too dangerous for humans. The fortress city of Kostyantynivka is a good example of what the kill zone now means: roads littered with destroyed UGVs, burnt vehicles, drones hunting overhead, and soldiers forced to walk for miles to reach the front. In some sectors, wounded soldiers have been trapped for months, unable to be evacuated, while surviving with medicine delivered by aerial drones. “Without the robots, it would be impossible. We would never get anyone out alive,” Kupa, who commands a unit of unmanned ground vehicles used for evacuation and resupply, told The Times. When that part of the trip ended, Lyuba dropped me in Dnipro and asked what I planned to do next. I told her I was trying to arrange to go to the front to join a Ukrainian unit on a mission. Over the years, I have gone on many frontline assignments. But each trip has become more dangerous. The front has changed. Drones watch the roads. Fiber-optic drones sit in the dark, waiting. The old margin for error is gone. Soldiers used to talk about making a wrong turn; now, due to the sheer number of drones hunting, it could kill them. I went to the front to get closer to the battlefield truth. In cities like Kyiv or Dnipro, the war is often filtered through secondhand stories and rumors. The front strips much of that away. Here, you see the war with more clarity, as soldiers live and fight under drones, artillery, glide bombs and constant fear. I had contacts in a territorial defense brigade that was considering taking me forward. Lyuba warned me against it. She said the mission sounded too dangerous and that the brigade might not have the protection needed for that part of the front. She offered to find a better-equipped unit. Soon after, she connected me with a commander from the Unmanned Systems Battalion of Ukraine’s 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade. I spoke with him, showed my press credentials, and we agreed that I could ride in on a supply run to the unit’s forward drone position, where I would spend time embedded with the team. I asked if Ryan could come too. The commander agreed. The road into the kill zone Then came the next problem: getting there. We were told to meet the drone unit near Pokrovske. The soldiers were operating along the Dnipro-Zaporizhzhia-Donetsk axis. Alina offered us a van from her organization, but when we stopped at a gas station in Dnipro to refuel, it broke down. The next morning became a scramble. My friend Oleksandr Dovhal helped us call rental companies. Cars were almost impossible to find. Dnipro was full of soldiers, volunteers and displaced people. After many calls, we found one vehicle available at a high price. We took it. The man renting us the car warned us not to drive within 40 kilometers of the front. I accepted the risk. I needed to get there. This is one of the least glamorous parts of freelance war reporting – there is no large budget, no corporate insurance policy, no security team, no fixer waiting with a convoy. I coordinate the access, pay for the trip, find the transport and carry the risk myself. That evening, Ryan and I packed our body armor and supplies. We had been sent coordinates and told to arrive by midnight. The drive was several hours long. As we prepared to leave, I overheard Ryan on the phone telling someone where he was going. If something happened, he said, they should tell his family. I had never made that kind of call before, even on previous missions. Maybe I had always avoided the thought. But this time, I sent a message to a friend too. I told him I was going to the front and that if he did not hear from me in a few days, something had probably happened. As we walked to the car, I tried to joke. “We’re taking a rental car into battle,” I told Ryan. He looked at me with disbelief, or maybe worry. “Yeah,” he said. “We are.” As we left the outskirts of Dnipro, our GPS suddenly stopped working. Somewhere above us, Russian drones were likely jamming the signal during an ongoing attack. We still had a rough idea of the route, but now the road ahead felt uncertain. Alina had warned us something like this could happen. A Ukrainian-American journalist and an American filmmaker driving themselves toward the front was not exactly a reassuring plan. Still, we kept going. Ryan constantly checked his phone, hoping the signal would briefly return and confirm we were still heading in the right direction. The farther we drove, the darker everything became. Villages disappeared into the night. Streetlights vanished. Only the road ahead remained visible in our headlights. Every so often we heard distant explosions or strange mechanical sounds echoing across the countryside. At one point, Ryan noticed the moon hanging low above the fields, glowing orange through the haze. The view of the dark roads on the journey to Pokrovske. (Photo: David Kirichenko) “Is that a bad sign?” he asked nervously. I laughed it off. “At least it’ll make the night memorable,” I told him. Eventually we reached a crossroads and slowed to a stop. Four different roads disappeared into darkness. Unsure which way to go, we drifted slightly toward the shoulder. A soldier at a nearby checkpoint started walking toward us, then stopped to light a cigarette. I worried we might attract unwanted attention by sitting there too long. The last thing I wanted was to take the wrong road deeper into the dark countryside. I rolled down the window and called out to him. “Which road leads there?” Without much interest, he pointed down one of the roads, took another drag from his cigarette, and walked away. We thanked him and continued. Hours later, we finally reached the coordinates we had been sent. Ryan and I parked the car and shut off the engine. The village around us was completely dark. I messaged the driver, a soldier with the callsign “Drunya,” who was sleeping in the nearby house. He was preparing for an early-morning supply run before sunrise, when the chances of surviving Russian drone surveillance were slightly better. So we waited. For nearly two hours, Ryan and I sat silently inside the parked rental car. At times, dogs barked aggressively at us from somewhere nearby. Then we heard shouting in the distance. A Ukrainian soldier emerged from the darkness, yelling incoherently as he wandered down the road. For a moment, I wondered if we were about to have a serious problem. Instead, the soldier kept walking, apparently drunk, disappearing back into the darkness without acknowledging us. “War carries such a weight, a gravity that draws you in,” said Ryan when asked why he came along with me. “I’d already committed to Ukraine, so when the opportunity came to embed, I couldn’t turn away. It felt like standing at the base of an active volcano – either stay back and hear the rumble, or climb up to see the fire.” Finally, a light flicked on inside the house and Drunya stepped outside. He greeted us calmly, as though meeting strangers in the middle of the night before driving into a kill zone was entirely routine. He led us toward a pickup truck painted dark green and fitted with electronic warfare systems designed to disrupt Russian drones. Drunya, a frontline driver with Ukraine’s 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade, smokes a cigarette before heading out on a resupply mission. (Photo: David Kirichenko) Then he opened the garage. Inside were stacks of first-person-view (FPV) drones lined across tables and shelves, many already taped with explosives. Nearby sat boxes of water, batteries, ammunition and food supplies waiting to be loaded. Without wasting time, Drunya began packing everything into the truck. He explained the drive to the position would take around 45 minutes along broken countryside roads. The route was chosen carefully to reduce exposure to Russian drones watching the main approaches. “If the truck stops at any point, even for a brief moment, leave your gear and run for cover under a tree,” Drunya warned. Standing there in the darkness, loading drones packed with explosives into the back of a pickup truck, I felt the weight of what was ahead begin settling in. This was no longer preparation. We were heading into the kill zone. And beyond us, somewhere hidden in the darkness, Russian drones were already searching the roads. Finally, another soldier emerged from the house, still groggy from sleep. He grabbed his body armor and rifle without saying much. Within minutes, we were climbing into the truck. As we began the drive toward the front, Drunya turned on music through the speakers. Each song seemed to stretch endlessly, burning itself into my memory. I stared out the window, trying to imagine what waited for us ahead. I looked over at Ryan in disbelief. I could not believe an American filmmaker was willingly coming with me on an embedded frontline mission where there was a very real chance of being wounded or killed. Ukrainian FPV drones await deployment before combat missions against Russian forces. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) But Ryan was hardly alone. Over the course of the war, thousands of Americans have been drawn to Ukraine’s cause. Some came to document it, others to deliver aid, and some to fight. A number never returned home, having given their lives in defense of a free Ukraine. For me, at least, there was an explanation. I am Ukrainian-American. I have family roots, friends and emotional ties to this war. I have skin in the game. But Ryan had chosen to come anyway. After some time, the truck slowed to a stop. “We’re about 20 kilometers from the front now,” Drunya told us. We were instructed to put on our body armor. From that point onward, everything felt different. Any moment, a drone could appear overhead. The seating in the back of the pickup was cramped and uncomfortable once the armor was on. The soldier in the passenger seat kept his rifle pointed upward, ready to fire if an enemy FPV drone suddenly appeared. Along these roads, fiber-optic drones hidden near the roadside had become a deadly threat for both sides. David Kirichenko during an embed with the Unmanned Systems Battalion of Ukraine’s 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) Then we turned off the main road. The truck bounced violently across narrow dirt paths and broken fields. No one spoke anymore. Earlier conversations and jokes had faded away. Each of us sat silently with our thoughts as the tension slowly tightened around us. Along the roads leading toward the frontline, trucks and armored vehicles crawled forward under welded metal cages and improvised plating meant to stop drones. The scene looked ripped from Mad Max, but it reflected the reality of modern war: cheap drones had changed everything. Drunya continued driving calmly through the darkness, as I stared out the window imagining what may come our way. Then, as we drew closer to the front, Drunya suddenly switched off the headlights to avoid detection by drones. The truck disappeared into complete darkness. Without saying a word, he pulled down his night-vision goggles and kept driving. I could not shake the fear that the speed we were driving on these cratered roads would destroy the truck. If it broke down out here, stopping for even a few minutes could be deadly. Every bump launched me upward, my helmet repeatedly smashing into the roof of the pickup. We were not soldiers. We came here by choice. That meant accepting a brutal reality: death here was not abstract. It was a very real possibility. As the truck pushed deeper toward the front, my mind spiraled through possibilities. If we were hit by a drone, what would I do? Run for the nearest treeline and hide? Try to find help? What if Ryan was severely wounded and I survived? What if I ran in the wrong direction? As a freelance journalist, I knew there would be no safety net waiting for me. No military evacuation. No guaranteed treatment. No system built to take care of people like us if things went wrong. If a drone tore through the truck and left me without arms or legs, I would simply become another civilian who voluntarily entered a war zone and paid the price for it. The same was true for Ryan. And somewhere above us, hidden in the darkness, drones were hunting the roads. Drunya had memorized the route to the position. He had to. A wrong turn could cost us precious minutes, or get us killed. At one point, we reached a place where the main bridge had been destroyed. The truck slowed as we crossed a makeshift wooden bridge, the boards shifting beneath us. Then we were back on the broken road, accelerating again through the dark. I kept waiting for a tire to burst. Far ahead, I saw a line of flames. Ryan and I could not tell what it was at first. As we drew closer, the shape became clear. A wheat field was burning. A Russian glide bomb had struck nearby, and the fire was still moving across the land. It looked like hell. We drove straight through it. Ryan saw it the same way. “It was just a ride through the black, no sense of where we were or what waited ahead,” he said. “Then, through the darkness, I saw what looked like industrial lights glowing in the distance. As we drew closer, I realized it wasn’t a factory at all. It was fire.” To him, it felt like crossing into another world. “We were in the volcano now,” he said. “We had entered a zone of terrible possibilities.” American filmmaker Ryan Van Ert on the frontline in Ukraine. (Photo: David Kirichenko) Ryan chose not to film, worried that even the glow of a small screen might reveal us. In hindsight, he told me he regrets not capturing those flames. “That surreal hellscape was the perfect, if terrible, introduction to the frontline,” he said. “It’s an image that has replayed in my head ever since.” As we neared the position, the soldier in the passenger seat picked up the radio and tried to reach the drone team. After a moment, someone answered. The signal held. They knew we were minutes away. Inside the bunker When we arrived, Bohdan, known by the callsign “Bandera,” met us outside. There was no time for introductions. If Russian drones had seen the truck, artillery or FPVs could follow. We unloaded quickly and moved underground into the bunker beneath the treeline. It was early morning. Two other soldiers, Andrii and Serhii, were asleep on narrow rack beds, taking what rest they could before the day began. Not long after we settled in, Bohdan heard over the radio that Drunya had been ambushed by a Russian drone on his way back. It had narrowly missed the truck. Somehow, he escaped unharmed. Bohdan turned to us and warned us to brace ourselves. The daily assaults usually began with glide bombs. Sitting in the bunker, I began wondering how much I should translate for Ryan. The soldiers spoke only Ukrainian, and he spoke only English. Some things were better left unsaid. But judging by the explosions outside, I could already sense how frightened he was becoming. Then Bohdan received word over the radio. Russian fighter jets were inbound to drop glide bombs near our sector. Bohdan, a drone pilot from the Unmanned Systems Battalion of Ukraine’s 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade, pilots an FPV drone in Donetsk Oblast during active battle operations. (Photo: David Kirichenko) I turned to Ryan and told him to prepare himself. Now this was it. Bohdan stepped outside under the camouflage netting and trees for a cigarette, careful not to make any sudden movements that might be spotted from above. We stood there quietly, watching the sun rise as he smoked. Getting to the position is often the most dangerous part. Drone ambushes, especially by fiber-optic drones, are very common across the front. “If you spot one in your rearview mirror, just pray the road ahead is good and floor it,” Bohdan said. “If you see it on the road ahead, you may need to ditch the vehicle.” The trench system here was layered and tightly interconnected. Another drone unit from Ukraine’s 419th Unmanned Systems Battalion sat a short walk through the trenches from the 110th brigade’s drone position; Ryan and I would visit it later that day. David Kirichenko interviews a soldier from Ukraine’s 419th Unmanned Systems Battalion in a frontline trench. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) Farther down the trench network sat an electronic warfare team operating systems designed to disrupt Russian drones overhead. Vladyslav, known by the callsign “Vitamin,” from the 141st Separate Mechanized Brigade, monitored a generator powering an electronic warfare system called “Damba.” The front, he explained, no longer resembled conventional warfare. “This isn’t a traditional war. It’s a war of drones,” he said. “A war of technology.” The constant noise had changed how soldiers lived and slept. “I can’t fall asleep if it’s quiet,” he admitted. “When I went back home for a few days, I couldn’t sleep the first night.” What frightened him most was often what he could not identify. “The worst sound is the one I don’t know where it’s coming from,” he said. “If I’m in a bunker and can’t tell where the danger is, that’s when it’s scary.” Tanks, he said, brought a different kind of fear. “You don’t hear the shot. You only hear the impact. You don’t know when it’s coming.” As I prepared my camera gear for the looming attack, I asked Bohdan how he had ended up here. He enlisted in 2020. He had once dreamed of joining the French Foreign Legion, but Russia’s full-scale invasion forced him to postpone those plans. Now he spends his days behind a headset, steering explosive-laden drones into Russian soldiers. Bohdan takes a smoke break as the early morning Russian assault begins. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) Then the first explosions hit. For hours, the area around us shook from glide bombs and artillery fire. Each blast sent dirt and dust drifting from the ceiling of the bunker. Ryan was trying to absorb it all without fully understanding what was being said around him. “My first instinct was to stay open, relaxed enough to take everything in, while quietly feeling out the rules,” he said. “Who could I film? Who should I avoid?” Because he did not speak Ukrainian, he relied on body language, sensing comfort or discomfort and trying not to overstep. The soldiers also emphasized staying dark, so he kept his camera down, afraid even the glow of a screen might compromise us. “That added another layer of tension,” Ryan said. “Moving toward danger in almost total darkness, not understanding the language, while also fighting the urge to document.” Early morning as Russian glide bombs fell on the area. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) Bohdan moved quickly to wake the others. The soldiers knew what came next. Once the glide bombs hit, Russian assaults usually followed soon after. He grabbed his goggles as reports came in over the radio: the Russian assault was beginning. Andrii pulled out a table and began mapping the drone flight path after launching a repeater drone into the air. Serhii grabbed the first FPV drone and moved outside to prepare it for launch. Ryan and I grabbed our cameras and followed him. Serhii quickly warned us not to get too close. The drone was already fitted with explosives, and a premature detonation could maim anyone standing nearby. “Guys have lost their hands that way,” he said. Before launch, he inspected the drone carefully, checking the wiring and the explosive. He said he had learned to follow the process exactly. “Some guys get cocky and do it their own way,” he said. Serhii prepares the detonator on an FPV drone. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) Serhii had once wanted to become a drone pilot himself, but changed his mind after seeing the burden that came with the role. “I wanted to be a pilot originally,” he said. “But then I saw all the extra responsibilities they have. It’s a dangerous job.” We rushed back into the bunker. Bohdan pulled on his FPV goggles. The assault was underway. Through the drone feed, he spotted a group of eight Russian soldiers moving forward. “They’re sending expendable infantry just so a Mavic [reconnaissance drone] can spot where our artillery is firing from,” Bohdan said. Bohdan explained that FPV drones are powerful but not always the fastest tool. An FPV can take 7 to 10 minutes to reach a target, while artillery can hit in under a minute once the target is fixed. “If you spot an enemy nearby, it takes me 10 minutes to reach him,” Bohdan said. “In that time, he could change direction five times.” That is why the team rarely relies on a single system. Instead, it practices combined-arms drone warfare. A Mavic locates the target, artillery delivers an immediate strike, and FPVs are used when precision or persistence is required. Infantry on the zero line can then support the operation or exploit the effects, working in coordination with drone teams positioned further to the rear. Bohdan, known by his callsign “Bandera,” pilots FPV drones against Russian assault forces in the area. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) Andrii explained that FPV strikes depend heavily on good reconnaissance. If a Mavic drone can hold the target and guide the pilot in, the strike can be effective. But without that guidance, the pilot may see only trees. “If someone just tells you the target is somewhere there, you might not even spot it with your camera,” Andrii said. Watching the Russian assault unfold, Bohdan said the Russian soldiers being sent forward had little chance of survival. “Their chance is near zero,” he said. “They’re here because they’re drug users, convicts, or people drowning in debt.” Throughout the day, we watched Bohdan fly drones at Russian soldiers moving through fields, hiding in treelines and sheltering inside houses. By afternoon, the assault intensified. Russian motorcycle units began moving forward. On the video screens, motorbikes tore across the fields, kicking up plumes of dust. I translated the rapid Ukrainian chatter for Ryan. Later, he told me this was the first time he felt “true fear.” The author alongside Andrii of Ukraine’s 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) “They’re about five kilometers away from us now,” Andrii said, eyes fixed on the feed. “If the stream holds, we can manage.” Around the Russian riders, artillery explosions ignited the fields. Smoke slowly swallowed the drone feed. From the Mavic’s view above, the landscape looked like hell: charred earth, craters and rising plumes of fire. Bohdan spotted a Russian soldier sprinting beneath the smoke, using it as cover. As he brought the drone closer, the connection cut in and out. He steadied it, circled the soldier and waited for a clearer view. Once the path opened, he locked onto the target and sent the drone hurtling toward him. Part of me wondered how much I should translate. Only days earlier, a Russian assault had broken through, forcing the Ukrainian operators to drop their controllers, grab rifles and shoot one Russian soldier near their trench. A Ukrainian trench on the frontline. Photo: (Ryan Van Ert) I told Ryan there was a chance we would have to prepare if another breakthrough happened. Bohdan kept launching drone after drone as the bikers came on. The operators tracked one Russian motorcyclist moving fast through fields toward farm buildings. The feed was confusing, the target was small, and the Mavic stream kept glitching. Several operators talked over one another as they tried to guide the strike drone onto him. They eventually found the target and detonated near him. One operator confirmed a “big explosion.” The motorcycle appeared to stop moving, but they could not immediately confirm casualties or locate the rest of the group. The exchange showed how chaotic these strikes can be: multiple feeds, bad signals, fast targets, shifting coordinates and constant pressure to act before the target disappears. “We won’t be able to clear it anymore,” Andrii said of the nearby village. “If they’ve entered, then either the guys holding the position fight them off completely, or a new assault will have to take it back.” Ukrainian soldiers were still holding defensive positions inside the village. “The Russians will sweep it house by house,” Andrii said. “If they come under fire, they’ll either shoot back, retreat or die.” Serhii of Ukraine’s 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade watches as smoke from the ongoing battle rises beyond a sunflower field. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) For the Ukrainian infantry there, the choice was brutal: hold to the end or fall back. I later asked Bohdan about the distance created by drone warfare. “The emotions are completely different when you kill someone with a rifle versus doing it from afar,” he said. “When you’re hovering six kilometers away, you don’t hear their last breath or how they scream.” A Russian soldier seen through the camera of a Ukrainian FPV drone moments before the drone struck. (Photo: David Kirichenko) Ryan told me that the fear he felt was different from other dangerous moments in his life. Part of it came from wanting to do his job well and capture something meaningful enough to justify the risk. The other part was the simple fear of being killed or badly wounded. What stayed with him most was how far the reality was from the movies. “There is no glory here,” he said. “No celebration in taking a life. Watching through the little screens, I found it hard to bear, knowing that even at a distance, I was witnessing the last moments of someone’s life.” It is a feeling I still struggle to describe. I was sitting in a bunker only a few kilometers away as smoke swallowed the fields outside. Every few minutes, explosions shook the ground. Beside me, on a small screen, I watched the last moments of Russian soldiers moving through the smoke. One by one, they disappeared as the drones struck. By then, my own body was starting to fail me. I had missed the steroid injections I usually get every few months to numb the pain in my legs before heading to the frontline. I was born with severe bilateral clubfoot and have lived with chronic pain my whole life. Now I was in a bunker, wearing body armor, running in and out to document a battle after more than a week on the front. Smoke rises in the distance during an ongoing Russian assault. Photo: (Ryan Van Ert) It took the life out of me. I joked with Ryan that I needed a wheelchair out here. The frontline is no place for a disabled person. The pain in my legs and back became so intense that, at times, I felt like I might collapse. Maybe it was the pain. Maybe it was the lack of sleep for many days. More likely, it was both. Both of us were sleep-deprived, so we tried to take short naps when we could. But every time I lay down, another explosion nearby shook the bunker and sent dirt falling onto my face. I would jump back to my feet, heart racing. Sleep was impossible. So I reached into my bag for another Red Bull. I had packed several, knowing caffeine might become the only thing keeping me upright. Andrii studied the drone feeds, tracking Russian movements near the position. As we watched wave after wave of Russian troops pushed forward, I asked him about Moscow’s grinding assault tactics and the human cost behind them. A live feed from a Ukrainian drone shows active fighting along the front line. (Photo: David Kirichenko) “They’re taking land, but at such a cost that no army can afford it,” Andrii said. “They’re losing a tremendous number of troops.” Ukrainian officials have claimed Russia is now losing more soldiers than it can recruit, with deaths estimated at 30,000 to 34,000 a month. By the end of the day, I had lost track of how many Russian soldiers I had seen killed on the drone feed. After each strike, Bohdan logged the number in a notebook. I did not ask for the tally. Andrii prepares to deploy a drone repeater to extend the radio link for FPV drone operations. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) The economics of this kind of war are brutal. Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, has said his units spend about $40 million a month on drones while inflicting roughly $4 billion in damage on Russia. He has put the cost of destroying one Russian infantryman at $882. I was still trying to process what I had watched: human lives reduced to marks on a page, and war compressed onto a small screen inside a bunker. The long ride out The next morning, Drunya was supposed to arrive with supplies and a fresh crew to rotate the team out. But evacuation is often the most dangerous part of the mission. Leaving the kill zone means exposing yourself on the roads again. I told Ryan to pack his things. It was time to go. The reaction of Ryan Van Ert once he was informed that it was time to leave the frontline and drive through the kill zone. (Photo: David Kirichenko) “Leaving the dugout was the most intense moment of all,” Ryan later said. “We knew the vehicle that dropped us off had narrowly avoided a drone ambush, and that stayed with us the entire time underground. The tension kept building toward the moment we would have to leave and be at our most vulnerable.” When the truck finally backed into the treeline, everyone moved quickly. Then came another scare. An FPV drone could suddenly be heard buzzing nearby. Ryan immediately ran for cover as the sound grew louder. Around us, the soldiers grabbed rifles in unison and pointed them toward the sky and nearby trees, searching for the drone. Andrii loads supplies into a truck as Ukrainian soldiers prepare to leave the front line. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) For a few tense seconds, nobody moved. Then the buzzing faded. The drone passed by. Once it was clear, everyone moved at once. Supplies were unloaded quickly, bags were thrown into the truck, and we climbed in after them. It was tight, body armor pressed against body armor. “We crammed into the truck, body armor pressed shoulder to shoulder, and began the long ride out,” Ryan said. As we drove away, the fear slowly loosened its grip, but only slightly. The truck was so packed that my body was bent sideways against the window. I kept thinking that if a drone hit us from this angle, at least it wouldn’t take my face first. The thought was absurd, but it stayed with me. For the entire drive through the kill zone, I stared out the window, waiting for a Russian drone to come crashing into the vehicle. Every second felt borrowed. Death was not behind us yet. Finally, as we approached the 20-kilometer mark, the vehicle stopped. We were told we could take off our body armor. It made it easier to breathe, easier to move, easier to fit inside the packed truck. Then we climbed back in and continued toward the soldiers’ base. “What struck me was how calm I felt,” Ryan said. “The morning was breathtaking, the sun rising over endless fields of sunflowers, so peaceful it seemed impossible that anything terrible could happen.” When we reached town, we stopped at a Ukrainian supermarket for morning coffee. “Soldiers stood around smoking, laughing and talking as though they had not just come from the edge of death,” Ryan said. He did not understand their words, but he understood the mood. We bought small espressos and joined them. I stood there in the morning light, still trying to make sense of the peace. Months later, I learned that Drunya had been killed by a Russian drone. It made that morning feel different in memory. The driver who had carried us out of the kill zone had not escaped it forever. “The heaviness of the night vanished,” Ryan said. “In that moment, I understood the rhythm of war: dark nights followed by mornings of light and laughter. Those fragments of normal life are the medicine that keeps people going.” A sunflower field near Ukraine’s front line. (Photo: Ryan Van Ert) As we drove out of town, Ryan spotted a sunflower field and asked me to stop so he could photograph the Ukrainian countryside. It looked like the fields we had just left near the front, except those fields were soaked in blood. We stood there together in silence, looking out over the sunflowers and trying to memorize their beauty. We were not the same men who had driven in. Republished with the author’s permission from HURI (Ukrainian Research Institute Harvard University)