Helping Save Kyiv From Drones: Volunteers, Caffeine and Vintage Guns
Clad in khaki fatigues, the Ukrainian volunteers lounged on a concrete terrace as dusk swallowed the surrounding fields. Music trickled from a phone, mingling with bursts of laughter — a fleeting ease before what they had been warned would be a 'hot night.'
They were members of one of many civilian units guarding the skies around the capital, Kyiv, on a recent Saturday night, their job to shoot down incoming Russian drones using old machine guns supplied by the Ukrainian Army. As they do every night, the volunteers — university professors, builders, salesmen — stood ready at their base in Pereiaslav, a town 50 miles southeast of Kyiv, waiting for the signal to deploy.
At 11:35 p.m., Mykhailo's phone rang. He picked it up, then shouted, 'Let's go!'
The chase was on.
Mykhailo and the other two members of his crew jumped into a gray pickup parked at the foot of the terrace and sped off, racing through narrow roads into the countryside. They pulled up beside an open field a few minutes later and jumped out. Moving quickly, they set up three tripods — two for machine guns, the third for night-vision binoculars and a laser.
Then, Mykhailo — who, like other crew members in this article, asked to be identified by only his first name for security reasons, according to military protocol — glanced at a tablet set on the pickup's hood. Its screen lit up with a swarm of red triangles sweeping across a live map of Ukraine; they showed Russian attack drones, several dozen miles away.
'Three heading our way,' said Mykhailo, who is a trade union representative by day. 'Let's wait.'
While Russia intensifies its drone assaults on Ukraine, volunteer crews like the one in Pereiaslav are spending sleepless nights trying to repel them. As the crew deployed last Saturday, Russia launched a record-breaking 472 drones and decoys at Ukraine. This Friday, Russia sent off another swarm of more than than 400 drones and decoys, in addition to nearly 40 cruise missiles and six ballistic missiles at towns and cities across the country, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, in one of the largest barrages of the war.
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Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Ukraine war latest: Ukraine strikes targets in Russia, including gunpowder plant
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The Kremlin's budget is increasingly strained by soaring military expenditures, with Russia's Finance Ministry relying heavily on energy revenues to fund the war against Ukraine. Join our community Support independent journalism in Ukraine. Join us in this fight. Support Us The push for tighter sanctions comes as Russia continues to reject ceasefire proposals and presses forward with military operations. Zelensky warned that Odesa remains one of Russia's "main targets," with plans to push beyond it toward the borders with Romania and Moldova. "Russia wants to destroy it, as it has done with countless cities and villages in the occupied territories," he said. "Russian military plans point to this region — Odesa — and then to the border with Moldova and Romania." Odesa is a major port city in southern Ukraine, located on the northwestern coast of the Black Sea. 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The repatriation was carried out through a coordinated effort involving the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Armed Forces, the Interior Ministry, the Ombudsman's Office, the State Emergency Service, and other national security and defense institutions. The International Committee of the Red Cross also supported the operation. The remains of soldiers were returned from multiple front-line regions, including Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Sumy oblasts. Officials emphasized that investigative and forensic teams from the Interior Ministry and the Health Ministry are working to identify the bodies in the shortest possible time. Vladimir Medinsky, aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, claimed Russia transferred the bodies of 1,212 Ukrainian soldiers in accordance with the agreements in Istanbul, while Ukraine released the remains of 27 Russian service members. The Ukrainian side did not disclose how many Russian bodies were handed over in return. 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If you value our work and want to ensure we have the resources to continue, join the Kyiv Independent community. We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
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Zelensky accuses Russia of broader territorial aims at Odessa summit
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New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
McConnell Tells Hegseth America's Reputation Is at Stake in Ukraine War
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