How Killing Russian Drone Ace Spurred Latest Ukraine Advance At Krynky

A Russian drone ace named Moisey and his team were responsible for taking out a couple dozen Ukrainian resupply boats and making hundreds of Ukrainian troops casualties.

Finding and killing him became a Ukrainian priority. A Ukrainian drone team finally found him launching a drone. They hit his hideout and eliminated him group. Since then, reinforcement and resupply of the Marines on the Dnipro's east bank has become safer and easier, enabling further Ukrainian advances against the defending Russians. JL 

David Axe reports in Forbes:

In mid-January, a Ukrainian drone team hunted down and killed an ace Russian drone pilot named Moisey. Taking him out shifted the momentum in the Krynky battle. Moses and his team hit 31 Ukrainian boats and killed or wounded 400 Ukrainian troops. Finding and killing Moses became a top priority of Ukrainian drone-operators. A Ukrainian drone spotted Moses’ team launching its drones from its Krynky hideout. A Ukrainian FPV blew it up. Neutralizing Moses reduced the threat. Reinforced and resupplied, the 35th Brigade marines in Krynky advanced to the west. “After Moisey’s group was disabled, Ukraine were able to carry out rotations without problem.”

The battle for Krynky, where the Ukrainian marine corps hangs onto a narrow bridgehead on the left bank of the wide Dnipro River in southern Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast, largely is a drone battle.

Both the Russians and Ukrainians surveil and strike at each other with small first-person-view drones, on some days filling the air with scores of FPVs.

So it was a big deal when, in mid-January, a Ukrainian drone team hunted down and killed an ace Russian drone pilot with the call-sign “Moisey.” Short for “Moses.”

Taking out Moses shifted the momentum in the Krynky battle. “After Moisey’s group was disabled, the enemy carries out rotations into the settlement without any problems,” one Russian correspondent complained in a missive translated by @wartranslated.

For months after first motoring across the Dnipro in mid-October, Ukrainian marines from the 35th Brigade struggled to expand their bridgehead.

Sure, artillery and drones covered the marines from the right bank, rebuffing nearly daily Russian counterattacks. But the marines couldn’t build up sufficient mass for their own successful attacks.

Moses was the main reason why. Flying two-pound, explosives-laden FPV drones from a two-story house just 500 feet west of the front line in Krynky, Moses ruthlessly hounded the small boats and amphibious tractors the Ukrainians counted on to resupply and reinforce their bridgehead.

Moses and his teammates reportedly hit 31 Ukrainian boats and killed or wounded nearly 400 Ukrainian troops. The boat-massacre drove some of the Krynky marines to despair—and inspired some doom-inflected reporting from The New York Times and other media. The Times in December quoted one Ukrainian marine calling the Krynky battle a “suicide mission.”

Finding and killing Moses became a top priority of Ukrainian drone-operators on the right bank of the Dnipro. Some time apparently in the first two weeks of January, they got their shot.

A Ukrainian drone spotted Moses’ team launching its own drones from its Krynky hideout. A Ukrainian FPV barreled into the house—and blew it up. “Little present to Moisey,” quipped a Ukrainian drone pilot with the call-sign “Balu.”

Neutralizing Moses didn’t end the threat of Russian drone strikes in and around Krynky, but the hit did reduce the threat. Suddenly more Ukrainian boats were getting across the Dnipro.

Reinforced and resupplied, the 35th Brigade marines in Krynky attacked—and reportedly advanced hundreds of feet to the west, ironically reaching the same building where Moses died.

 

The fight for Krynky isn’t a “suicide mission.” Mostly, it’s an attrition trap for Russian troops in Kherson.

Repeatedly trying and failing to dislodge the Ukrainians in Krynky, the Russians have lost at least 157 tanks, fighting vehicles and howitzers and potentially thousands of troops, while destroying just 24 Ukrainian weapons—artillery, mostly—and killing or maiming probably a few hundred marines and boat crew.

But that’s not to say the battle strictly is positional, with neither side gaining ground. After killing the most dangerous Russian in Krynky, a drone commander, the Ukrainians have the momentum—and they’re advancing.