The Low-Down: On Patrol With the Ukrainian Army's Nocturnal Drone Hunters

Ukraine's elite air defense forces are now world class thanks to state-of-the art NATO weaponry that they wield with increasing mastery, as reflected in the rates of destruction of Russian drones and missiles they have inflicted.

They operate mostly at night and in total secrecy, both to avoid Russian attacks on their weapons systems and thwart Russian missile and drone attacks. Their efforts have saved countless lives and reduced Russian attack effectiveness. JL

Liz Cookman reports in The Economist:

Ukraine’s mobile air-defence teams operate in the shadows. They offer cover to critical infrastructure and are placed along the possible flight paths of drones and missiles. Ukraine's air defences are now world-class. Ukraine’s missile defences include German Gepards, Soviet systems such as the Buk, handheld Stingers, more advanced Nasams, iris-t, and Patriots, which can down cruise missiles. For the Gepard to stalk its prey, a screen tells where the target is and the optimal time to fire. A missile is in range for 15 to 20 seconds. Drones linger in the hit zone for 30 to 35 seconds. The Gepard’s array of buttons and flashing panels may make it feel like a video game, but the stakes could not be higher.

It’s approaching midnight when we hear the eerie howl of an air-raid siren. Five Shahed drones, an Iranian model that can be packed with explosives, are flying up the Dnieper river on their way to the capital, Kyiv. In a small wooden cabin at a secret location, three members of one of Ukraine’s mobile air-defence units are about to spring into action.
Wearing military fatigues bulked up with thermals and fleeces – it’s -6°C tonight – the men head outside and disappear into some bushes. Then, with a roar so deep that it reverberates through your organs, the Gepard, an anti-aircraft tank that takes its name from the German word for “cheetah”, emerges from the foliage. Weighing 47 tonnes, it’s not as lithe as its namesake but just as ruthless. Its gun has a range of more than 6,000 metres and is designed to take down all sorts of combat aircraft, from drones to attack helicopters, missiles and rockets. Germany has sent around 35 of them to Ukraine since the war began and 14 more are on their way.
The Gepard’s array of buttons and flashing panels make it feel a bit like a video game, only the stakes could not be higher
Just after midnight, the hunt gets under way. The Gepard and her crew motor off to find a firing position – somewhere with enough open sky to have a good chance of an unencumbered shot. It’s such a clear night that you can make out all the twinkling constellations. They have to be quick: the men have just 15 minutes to get into position after the sirens sound.
It’s approaching midnight when we hear the eerie howl of an air-raid siren. Five Shahed drones, an Iranian model that can be packed with explosives, are flying up the Dnieper river on their way to the capital, Kyiv. In a small wooden cabin at a secret location, three members of one of Ukraine’s mobile air-defence units are about to spring into action.
Wearing military fatigues bulked up with thermals and fleeces – it’s -6°C tonight – the men head outside and disappear into some bushes. Then, with a roar so deep that it reverberates through your organs, the Gepard, an anti-aircraft tank that takes its name from the German word for “cheetah”, emerges from the foliage. Weighing 47 tonnes, it’s not as lithe as its namesake but just as ruthless. Its gun has a range of more than 6,000 metres and is designed to take down all sorts of combat aircraft, from drones to attack helicopters, missiles and rockets. Germany has sent around 35 of them to Ukraine since the war began and 14 more are on their way.
The Gepard’s array of buttons and flashing panels make it feel a bit like a video game, only the stakes could not be higher
Just after midnight, the hunt gets under way. The Gepard and her crew motor off to find a firing position – somewhere with enough open sky to have a good chance of an unencumbered shot. It’s such a clear night that you can make out all the twinkling constellations. They have to be quick: the men have just 15 minutes to get into position after the sirens sound.
It’s time for the Gepard to stalk its prey. A screen on the dashboard tells the men where the target is and the optimal time to fire. A missile is in range for 15 to 20 seconds, although drones linger in the hit zone for 30 to 35 seconds. “When you fire and smell that gunpowder, it’s addictive,” said Bubba, 28, one of the tank’s operators. “You’re overcome with pride.” The Gepard’s array of buttons and flashing panels may make it feel a bit like a video game, but the stakes could not be higher.
Russia has supplemented its ground campaign with frequent missile and drone barrages, intended to damage Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and terrify civilians. These peaked in May 2022, when Kyiv suffered a month of near-nightly bombardments. Over last Christmas and new year, Russian attacks escalated again. On December 29th the capital experienced the biggest aerial attack of the war so far, which killed 33 people and injured more than 160 others. It’s a sign of the strength of Ukraine’s air defences that more people weren’t killed.
At the start of the war, Ukraine had creaky Soviet-era air defences. Now they are world-class, thanks to the hi-tech weaponry donated by its allies. As well as the Gepards, Ukraine’s multilayered missile defences include old Soviet systems such as the Buk, handheld devices like Stingers, more advanced systems like nasams and iris-t, which can down cruise missiles, and Patriots, which can ground ballistic missiles.
“If we hit something, we celebrate with a sausage,” said Bubba. “Even though it’s usually 3am”
Ukraine’s mobile air-defence teams operate in the shadows, ready to shoot down deadly weapons with just a few minutes’ notice. They offer cover to critical infrastructure and are placed along the possible flight paths of drones and missiles. With secrecy a top priority, these soldiers live under a cloak of invisibility, unable to be more than 15 minutes away from their position in case the air-raid sirens wail. Without them, any semblance of a normal life would be impossible and Ukrainians would spend most of their time confined to shelters.
But the work comes at a personal cost. “I can’t leave and I can’t tell my family my location. I miss them very much,” said Shaman, 40, the commander of this Gepard team. I spent a night with them in December – the first time Ukraine has allowed a journalist to join a call-out with any air-defence unit.
Shaman has a tufty goatee beard and hasn’t cut his sandy shoulder-length hair since the war started. He got his call sign because his colleagues joked that missiles miraculously stopped falling on any city he arrived in. Before the war Shaman was a foreman in the construction industry and worked on a memorial in Kyiv to the victims of the Holodomor, Stalin’s man-made famine that killed 4m Ukrainians in the 1930s. He comes from Kramatorsk, a front-line city in eastern Ukraine. His wife and 16-year-old daughter are now living in Lviv, in the west of the country.
Ukraine’s mobile air-defence teams operate in the shadows, ready to shoot down deadly weapons with just a few minutes’ notice
Shaman and his men were mobilised on April 16th 2022. That August they travelled to Germany, where they completed the usual 18 months of training required to operate a Gepard in just 40 days. “We are talented,” he said with a smile as we sipped hot tea from metal cups in the team’s cabin. He explained how at first the men had to use Google Translate to decipher the Gepard’s controls, which are in German. They have now memorised which button does what.
To get inside the Gepard you have to climb on top and lower yourself in through a hatch. It can accommodate about two people standing up, side by side. “We don’t eat much. We have to fit in a very small space,” Shaman said. Bubba chips in: “But if we hit something, we celebrate with a sausage. Even though it’s usually 3am.” His personal record is three missiles shot down in 20 minutes.

Bubba, from the Kharkiv region, loved his former job as an agricultural sales manager, selling seeds and fertilisers. He talked about it so much when he joined the military that his comrades named him after Bubba Blue, a character in “Forrest Gump” who is obsessed with shrimp. Bubba is single and has lost all hope of rectifying that while he remains in the army. “I can’t meet women. I’m always on duty,” he said, laughing. His colleague Veles, who is also from the Kharkiv region, is a former ambulance driver. He has two young children and 11 cats, mostly rescues.
Ryabiy has had only two holidays since the war started. “When I last saw my daughter, she could only crawl. Now she is already running”
They work for most of the night, at the beck and call of the air-raid sirens. The days are spent napping, doing diy on the hideout, and gathering and chopping firewood for the stove. They sleep on camp beds that circle a small table, with clothes and other belongings – including Shaman’s lime-green travel hairdryer – hanging from nails on the wall. A boisterous stray kitten lives with them – “a tiny Gepard”, they joke. While they wait for a call out, they message family and watch YouTube. It’s not uncomfortable, but it’s not home. They told me they miss sleeping in their own beds, going for long walks, eating lunch in a café.
They have had one ten-day holiday since joining the army. It’s hardest on birthdays, at Christmas and new year. They know their work allows people almost to forget about the war, yet they can’t help but wish that they themselves could celebrate, or take their children to see the big Christmas tree in Kyiv. “Someone has to protect the country. Who, if not us?” said Bubba. The team worked every day of the festive period, downing several targets during the wave of attacks around the new year.
Russia has supplemented its ground campaign with frequent missile and drone barrages, intended to damage Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and terrify civilians. These peaked in May 2022, when Kyiv suffered a month of near-nightly bombardments. Over last Christmas and new year, Russian attacks escalated again. On December 29th the capital experienced the biggest aerial attack of the war so far, which killed 33 people and injured more than 160 others. It’s a sign of the strength of Ukraine’s air defences that more people weren’t killed.

But the work comes at a personal cost. “I can’t leave and I can’t tell my family my location. I miss them very much,” said Shaman, 40, the commander of this Gepard team. I spent a night with them in December – the first time Ukraine has allowed a journalist to join a call-out with any air-defence unit.
Shaman has a tufty goatee beard and hasn’t cut his sandy shoulder-length hair since the war started. He got his call sign because his colleagues joked that missiles miraculously stopped falling on any city he arrived in. Before the war Shaman was a foreman in the construction industry and worked on a memorial in Kyiv to the victims of the Holodomor, Stalin’s man-made famine that killed 4m Ukrainians in the 1930s. He comes from Kramatorsk, a front-line city in eastern Ukraine. His wife and 16-year-old daughter are now living in Lviv, in the west of the country.
Ukraine’s mobile air-defence teams operate in the shadows, ready to shoot down deadly weapons with just a few minutes’ notice
Shaman and his men were mobilised on April 16th 2022. That August they travelled to Germany, where they completed the usual 18 months of training required to operate a Gepard in just 40 days. “We are talented,” he said with a smile as we sipped hot tea from metal cups in the team’s cabin. He explained how at first the men had to use Google Translate to decipher the Gepard’s controls, which are in German. They have now memorised which button does what.
To get inside the Gepard you have to climb on top and lower yourself in through a hatch. It can accommodate about two people standing up, side by side. “We don’t eat much. We have to fit in a very small space,” Shaman said. Bubba chips in: “But if we hit something, we celebrate with a sausage. Even though it’s usually 3am.” His personal record is three missiles shot down in 20 minutes.
Bubba, from the Kharkiv region, loved his former job as an agricultural sales manager, selling seeds and fertilisers. He talked about it so much when he joined the military that his comrades named him after Bubba Blue, a character in “Forrest Gump” who is obsessed with shrimp. Bubba is single and has lost all hope of rectifying that while he remains in the army. “I can’t meet women. I’m always on duty,” he said, laughing. His colleague Veles, who is also from the Kharkiv region, is a former ambulance driver. He has two young children and 11 cats, mostly rescues.
Ryabiy has had only two holidays since the war started. “When I last saw my daughter, she could only crawl. Now she is already running”
They work for most of the night, at the beck and call of the air-raid sirens. The days are spent napping, doing diy on the hideout, and gathering and chopping firewood for the stove. They sleep on camp beds that circle a small table, with clothes and other belongings – including Shaman’s lime-green travel hairdryer – hanging from nails on the wall. A boisterous stray kitten lives with them – “a tiny Gepard”, they joke. While they wait for a call out, they message family and watch YouTube. It’s not uncomfortable, but it’s not home. They told me they miss sleeping in their own beds, going for long walks, eating lunch in a café.
They have had one ten-day holiday since joining the army. It’s hardest on birthdays, at Christmas and new year. They know their work allows people almost to forget about the war, yet they can’t help but wish that they themselves could celebrate, or take their children to see the big Christmas tree in Kyiv. “Someone has to protect the country. Who, if not us?” said Bubba. The team worked every day of the festive period, downing several targets during the wave of attacks around the new year.

At another classified location, somewhere near Kyiv, I met Ryabiy, one half of a two-man team operating a Stinger. On the side of the gun are 12 tridents, stencilled on with white spray paint, a record of what he’s shot down. He told me this included two Russian planes during the battle of Kyiv, two Russian helicopters near Bucha, and four reconnaissance drones during the liberation of Kharkiv.
Ryabiy, who is 26 and from the Kyiv region, worked in a factory that made lemonade before he joined the army four years ago. His wife and toddler daughter live in the port city of Odessa, which suffers regular waves of attacks. He’s in close contact with Odessa’s air-defence units, so he can keep tabs on when and where attacks have occurred. He has had only two holidays since the war started, one lasting just three days. “When I last saw my daughter, she could only crawl,” he said. “Now she is already running.”
At the secret firing location, the Gepard team checks Telegram for updates and waits for orders from a commander. Lights from other mobile teams dot the landscape – if you didn’t know what you were looking for, you might mistake them for car headlamps. The Shaheds have disappeared from the sky. They may have been downed by another unit or changed direction – the team will know more later. They can’t return to their hideout until the air-raid siren ends, which can take hours. Once it took a day and a half. “You get used to not sleeping,” said Bubba.