Ukrainians Defending Vuhledar Use Drones, Data To Beat More Numerous Russians

Javelin anti-tank missiles, artillery, Himars - but above all drones and tech linkages - have given Ukrainian forces an information and targeting advantage in beating back the more numerous but poorly trained and led Russians. JL 

Dan Sabbagh report in The Guardian:

Day after day of attacks has underscored familiar Russian tactical limitations and a low regard for the value of its soldiers’ lives. If it is the start of the Russian spring offensive, it has been a disaster. “We can see they’re poorly trained. Newly mobilised soldiers “gather, making them easier targets. They don’t have any tactics. It’s as if they were told, you have this task, but not told how to do it." Critical to Ukraine’s defence is to spot and attack the Russians from a distance. Key weapons are Javelin anti-tank missiles plus artillery, while Himars rockets can be called in from specialist units. But at the heart are drones, “like a magic wand, helping us with everything, intelligence, reconnaissance, correcting the aim”.

Crunching through the snow, a few miles from the Russian frontline, there are few visible signs of the activity going on below. At ground level, where the temperature is -6C, the background noise of artillery fire is constant: the pops of outgoing shells and the crumps of incoming ones, as the Russians attack the nearby town of Vuhledar, a fight that has already been going on for three weeks.

The military escort turns off into an ordinary dacha, and heads not for the house, but towards a nearby cellar, pushing past a dirty hanging drape. It reveals a flight of steps leading to a heavy metal door and beyond that a hi-tech command post. Inside a stove-warmed room, half a dozen soldiers from Ukraine’s 68th Jaeger infantry brigade monitor the frontline.

Here, the soldiers are armed with laptops. One constantly eyes camera footage, which can come from drones, another the Russians’ radio communications – both gathering intelligence. The frozen fields on the central screen appear quiet at that moment, but the fighting has been intense nearby, around a small coal mining town that the Ukrainians are desperate to hold. 

Viacheslav (Ukraine’s military only allows first names to be used), a major, is the local commander. He explained that Vuhledar matters because it is on an elevated position, and that if the Russians capture it they will have “fire control” on villages to the north. Losing it could force a retreat closer to Kurakhove, 15 miles (24km) behind the current frontline. “No matter how good our defence line, it is going to become pointless” if the village is lost, he said.

Russian assaults on Vuhledar typically “start at 4am to 5am” and have been taking place daily, according to another commander, a senior lieutenant aged only 23, who goes by the call sign of Tykhyi. The young officer is from Ukraine’s 72nd mechanised brigade, an armoured unit that has been leading the defence of the town, with the 68th assisting, since the battle began on 24 January.  Despite day after day of attacks, Ukraine’s military have only given a little ground in a fight that has – so far at least – underscored familiar Russian tactical limitations and a low regard for the value of its soldiers’ lives. If it is the start of the Russian spring offensive, it has been a disaster. 

“We can see very clearly that they’re poorly trained,” Tykhyi said. The Russian troops are from the 155th naval infantry brigade, comprised of newly mobilised soldiers. The novices, he said, often “gather in one pile of people” making them easier targets. “They don’t have any tactics. It’s as if they were told, you have this task, go and do it, but they were not told how to do it. So they just improvise.”

Videos of the fighting, taken from overhead drones, back up the Ukrainian’s point. One shows an exposed Russian tank being struck in the area, an easy target for the defenders. Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Friday it believed that Russian troops abandoned “at least 30 mostly intact armoured vehicles” after a single “failed assault” as confirmed in a string of picture.

According to Tykhyi the Russians initially made heavy use of tanks and fighting vehicles but as the days have worn on, have thrown forward an increasing proportion of infantry. It suggests that the attackers were running short on armour in the Vuhledar sector, at least for now.

Critical to Ukraine’s defence is to spot and attack the Russians from a distance, before they get to what is left of Vuhledar, where it is estimated that only 300 people still live. A video released at the beginning of February depicts a shattered town.

Key weapons, said Tykhvi, are Javelin anti-tank missiles plus artillery, while Himars rockets can be called in from specialist units. But at the heart are drones – which he said were “like a magic wand, helping us with everything, intelligence, reconnaissance, correcting the aim”.

Last week, Elon Musk’s Space X said it had taken steps to prevent Starlink, the communications service widely used by Ukraine’s military, from controlling drones on the Donbas battlefield.

However, the lieutenant said he had yet to see any impact. “It works for now,” he said. Other drone experts elsewhere in Kyiv’s army agree. Lt Col Pavlo Khazan, who runs a specialist unit, said he believed Musk’s intention was to restrict the use of Starlink on “attack, not surveillance drones”, but whether it is possible for its software to make such a distinction is unclear.

The ground here is flat, exposed fields punctuated by villages of small dachas in the area south of Kurakhove. Civilians are few and far between, while military movements are constant, mostly of Ukrainian, not western, weapons. At one point a dozen or so BMP-1s – a fighting vehicle that first went into service in 1966 – drive past, heading towards the frontline. The hope is that the 72nd will one day get a squadron or so of western tanks, although Tykhvi has heard of no commitment yet.

Farther south, closer still to the frontline, is the ruined and deserted village of Prechystivka, 8 miles west of Vuhledar. It has been heavily shelled by the invader’s artillery, its handful of buildings in mangled ruin.

“They thought we were here,” said Oleg, an infantryman in the 68th, referring to Ukrainian command points, “but we weren’t”. It already feels like no man’s land, but, because the fighting around Vuhledar is localised, it is possible to go even farther south.

At this point roads turn into snowy fields. Finally there is a tree line on a small ridge, where trenches that are only belly high have been dug. Above, some branches have been chipped by gunfire. This is an anti-tank position and somewhere beyond lie the Russian lines, not quite visible down the hill. The closest point is “about 500 metres”, Oleg said. It turns out the tree line is “zero”, Ukrainian soldiers’ speak for the frontline and while it remains quiet, it is time to leave as rapidly as we came.

Oleg worked in a bank before the war, in Rivne, western Ukraine. On the journey back, he said he was prepared to fight for his country, although he gripes that some of the local men do not, and accuses half of the remaining locals of being pro-Russian. Being constantly on the front is also draining, he said – a familiar soldier’s complaint. “I’ve had 10 days away since May,” he said.

It is not clear how many casualties the Ukrainians are taking, although Russians are suffering more because they are being targeted from range (one Ukrainian estimate is that the invaders are taking 17 casualties per defender). A group of 10 Ukrainian combat medics, with two ambulances, are on standby in the grey zone behind the lines, ready to pick up the wounded from soldiers who have brought them back from the battlefield to a point “5, 6, sometimes 4 kilometres from the frontline,” said the chief medic, Vladyslav. They sleep, eat and live in the villages south of Kurakhove, ready to drive to pick up a casualty 24 hours a day, treating people who have had limbs blown off or are simply suffering from the cold. The wounded who get to the paramedics will almost certainly live – only 10% die once picked up – Vladyslav said, but as the fighting has become more intense, so too has their work. Until the end of January, the team “used to have one call a day, now we have up to 10”, he added.

Their task is to get the injured, ideally within half an hour or so, to a special stabilisation centre for the 72nd brigade nearby. Another dozen doctors and other medics work and pretty much sleep there, where the wounded can receive more blood, have hearts restarted or be operated on as necessary. There are two foil covered beds for the most urgent cases, and the goal is to get people out of the centre within 30 to 45 minutes, along muddy and potholed roads to the nearest hospital. Mercifully no wounded arrive when we visit, but on the busiest days the medical staff treat 40.

One of the anaesthetists is Valeria, newly qualified, from Chernihiv. Since the war started Valeria has been based in the hotspot of Bakhmut, and now here. It is constant, intense and demanding work. “Day and night have all become one for me. It seems as if it is one long night,” Valeria said, but she added her job was easier than others. “The worst job is collecting the dead bodies. A friend of mine who does it said, ‘I’m so tired putting the pieces of our guys into the bags’.”

For a moment the fighting seems pointless, but then Valeria said: “I just want the Russians out of my home.”

Now I remember the 23-year-old tank commander; the fate of Europe depends so much on the determination of the young in these exposed eastern fields, as much as politicians in Kyiv.