‘It's a robot war': eastern Ukraine faces onslaught of Russian glide bombs, rockets and kamikaze drones

The Guardian

3 days ago

Nataliya Petrovna pointed to a crater on the edge of a football field. Around it lay bits of twisted metal. From nearby came loud banging as residents fixed plywood to their damaged five-storey apartment block. Many of its windows were broken. 'The last few days have been terrible. We could hear the drones buzzing over us. The one that exploded near the school opposite was a Russian Shahed. Maybe some kind of new type,' she said.
Petrovna lives in the eastern garrison city of Kramatorsk, in Donetsk province, about 15 miles from the frontline. The distance is just beyond the range of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, at least for now. But it is easily reachable by other kinds of enemy objects. They include air-dropped glide bombs, Grad rockets and unmanned kamikaze drones – now cruising Ukraine's skies in overwhelming numbers.
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, the Kremlin has dramatically escalated its bombardment of Ukrainian cities, including Kramatorsk. In his meeting on Friday with the US president in Alaska, Vladimir Putin is likely to demand that Ukraine hands Kramatorsk over to Moscow, together with other Ukrainian-controlled territory Russia does not control. He claims four Ukrainian regions as well as Crimea. Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has vowed not to give up land, saying the constitution forbids it.
Amid anxiety that the US will pressure Kyiv into an unjust peace deal, Russian troops have been pushing forward, trying to create facts on the ground. Earlier this week they reportedly broke through Ukrainian lines, advancing past the town of Dobropillia, north of the besieged city of Pokrovsk.
At the same time, Russia has launched a record number of aerial attacks. Over the past week, from 4 to 10 August, the Russian military deployed more than 1,000 aerial bombs and nearly 1,400 kamikaze drones against Ukraine. The current record is 728 drones and 13 missiles sent in a single night in July, most directed at the western city of Lutsk. By autumn, German experts predict Moscow could send 2,000 drones a day.
Once imported from Iran, they are now mass-produced in vast Russian factories. Footage shown on state media shows row of drones painted with dark camouflage inside the Alabuga compound. The plant is located in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, 1,050 miles from the front. Its main product is the Geran-2, an attack drone. One version carries a devastating 200-pound payload; several have artificial intelligence features.
Zelenskyy's government has been scrambling to find an answer to this growing swarm. European partners have promised to send more Patriot advanced air defence systems, costing more than $1bn each. Kyiv is currently believed to have six to eight of them. Patriots can intercept cruise and ballistic missiles but are not a cost-effective way of bringing down drones. A tech company founded by the former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt is reportedly building drones with AI targeting technology.
Ukrainian manufacturers have been working on a solution, too: a cheap, scalable interceptor drone that can knock out incoming Shaheds. Last month Zelenskyy toured a factory where they are being made. 'A clear task has been set for the manufacturers: Ukraine must be capable of deploying at least 1,000 interceptors per day within a defined timeframe,' he told engineers and officials, saying they 'protected lives'.
In April the drone company, Wild Hornets, released a prototype. One of its representatives said the new interceptor – known as Sting – worked against kamikaze, reconnaissance and other drone models. 'Sting is a normal drone with a different body structure. It looks like a rocket. You can launch it from the ground. It's pretty fast. Its speed is about 300km an hour,' they said.
They declined to say how many Shaheds String had destroyed, stressing that Ukraine faced many technical challenges. Russia has improved the design of its Shaheds, adding stealth features. It uses quicker jet-engine drones, capable of flying at an altitude of 3 miles. 'They are not so easy to catch,' the representative admitted. Additionally, Ukrainian air defence units had little experience of operating Sting, which took down its first Shahed in May.
'Both sides are scaling up. It's hard to say who is winning,' the representative said. They acknowledged Russia had the edge when it came to cable-controlled fibre-optic drones, which are immune to electronic jamming and have been used in 2025 across the frontline. Russia deployed them for the first time last autumn in the battle for Kursk province, after Ukrainian combat units seized a chunk of Russian territory.
Drones are a cheap and accurate way of destroying expensive battlefield equipment such as tanks, manufacturers say. Stanislav Gryshyn, the head of the General Cherry drone group, said his company was developing a pioneering anti-Shahed weapon. The old method of bringing down Russian drones– firing at them with machine guns from fields or the top of high buildings – no longer worked, he added.
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FPV drones capable of dropping high explosives caused most injuries and deaths, Gryshyn said. 'It's the first world war plus drones. Because of them, it's incredibly difficult to push the line forward. When the Russians do it, it costs them many human lives. They send their drone teams to riskier forward positions than we do, as close as 1km from the front. That means their drones fly further. And the operators get killed.'
Supplying infantry troops has become increasingly perilous. In a workshop in Donetsk province – the scene of fighting ever since Russia's part-takeover of the region in 2014 – Ukrainian soldiers were assembling electronic kit. Some components looked like green-painted buckets. These shells known as radomes conceal antennae, which are used as part of a system to jam hostile drones. 'We need six to cover different frequencies,' said Alex Kashyn, a soldier.
Kashyn's colleagues from the 5th brigade attached the electronic warfare system to the roof of a military vehicle. Did it work? 'Yes. We've tested it,' he replied. He said the Russians were constantly improving their tactics. They put up two drones, with the second used to boost the radio signal of the first. 'In 2024 this gave them 5 to 7km more in terms of range. Now they can go an extra 15 to 20km, depending on the terrain,' he explained.
Russia enjoys considerably more resources and the help of key allies such as China and North Korea, Kashyn said. Officially, Beijing professes neutrality. In June, however, it stopped selling micro-electronic drone parts to Ukraine, which Kyiv had previously bought in huge quantities. 'China is still selling them to Russia. There are no restrictions. Wars always lead to technological innovation throughout history, and we will adapt,' he said.
Back in Kramatorsk, sleep-deprived residents tidied up their drone-damaged homes. One, Valentina, swept up glass that had fallen onto her carefully tended garden of lilies and yellow daisies. 'Shaheds are not new for us. It used to be every other day. Lately, they turn up every day. Something somewhere is always blowing up. It's bang, bang, bang,' she said. Of the latest attack, she said she lay on the floor of her apartment thinking: 'Oh no, that's it.'
Valentina's neighbour shouted down from the third floor. 'My hands are still trembling. I don't know how I should sleep. I'm afraid of the night,' the neighbour said. Valentina agreed. She said she was determined to stay in Kramatorsk, regardless of how many bombs fell.
'It's a robot war,' she said. How can such weapons be allowed? God, why is this happening?'
She added: 'We ordinary people are suffering.'