"Do you see that?" asks a heavily built soldier everyone calls Master. "The heavy artillery is getting closer. They are only six kilometres away. We are within their range now."
Master is wheezing from the effort of launching an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Its owner bellows, "Three, two, one - go!" The drone - which measures about one metre by one metre - shoots off, propelled by an engine that buzzes energetically. For a short time it's possible to follow its progress out over the sea, but pretty soon it's out of sight.
Now Master and another fighter sit on two small folding chairs, mesmerised by the images on two small monitors in the open boot of their 4x4. Bird, as Master has fondly named the plane, sends back real-time images of an area it would be impossible for either of the men to reconnoitre: the other side of the front line. The images reveal fields full of craters of various sizes. Beyond them, there are trenches in a zigzag pattern. These are enemy positions.
"Bird flies a course preprogrammed by us," Master says. "But during the flight, we can adjust its path, vary the altitude and make the camera turn in any direction. We can zoom in as well."
The incoming images are razor sharp; way down below, treetops sway in the wind and a flock of birds swarms by.
Flying is Master's hobby. Two and a half years ago, when fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine with the Russian Federation, he quit his job as a policeman and joined the Donbas Battalion, an army unit of volunteers. He applies his past experience as a pilot when he reconnoitres the front line with UAVs, and offers any information he collects to the army.
Today, the men are situated in a field on a cliff by the sea, ten kilometres east of the port of Mariupol. The front line - a village named Shyrokyne - lies nearby, below them. It's not visible but, from time to time, it's possible to hear an explosion. "Don't worry, they can't see us," Master says.
"Look, a BMP," Master's comrade says excitedly. The men readjust their camera and stare intently at the screen. Sure enough, the infantry fighting vehicle - known as a BMP - has been located, half-buried ready for an ambush. BMPs are illegal under the Minsk Agreement - a document, signed in 2014, intended to end the fighting in the Donbass region of Ukraine. Further down, behind the village, they spot more tank-like vehicles.
This zone near Mariupol has been the scene of heavy fighting in the past few months. The soldiers call this artillery bombardment "the concert" as it happens in the dark. As soon as the controllers of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) - an international monitoring group - leave the area at night, the heavy weapons come out. Then there's non-stop firing from both sides until dawn.
Master prepares to launch a drone. The visual data collected from it of pro-Russia separatists' positions will be used by his team in collaboration with the Ukrainian army and volunteers' groups in southeast Ukraine
Ukraine's belief is that the Russians want to seize Mariupol to create a land connection between Crimea - which has been annexed by Russia - and the rebel territories in southeast Ukraine.
"Last night we had to deal with 122mm mortar shells and - to judge by the size of the splinters - tank fire," says Volodymyr Hrynyuk, deputy commander of the Eighth Army battalion. His unit of about 400 men is stationed around the village of Hranitne, 50 kilometres north of Mariupol. Each night, a section of his soldiers mans the trenches at the front line. "At night we must be on standby at our positions, ready to defend ourselves, if necessary."
Now, in the daytime, his men rest at the army base. Or, if they are in their battle positions, they clean and maintain their weapons and shore up the earthen trench walls with wooden stakes.
Hrynyuk and his unit have neither drones nor reconnaissance planes as the Ukrainian army has a shortage of basic equipment.
The frustrating part is that the enemy has access to this kind of technology. "We consistently see them flying overhead," he says. "When we do, we can almost be sure that, two hours later, our positions will be bombed."
Indeed, the following night, every Ukrainian position is attacked. The explosions are deafening and shrapnel splinters fly through the air. The soldiers huddle, waiting in the trenches for the bombardment to finish.
Returning fire is difficult. "Without drones, our army is blind," Master says. Hrynyuk's men are forced to locate the enemy positions in the old-fashioned way: on foot, by sending out reconnaissance patrols. "That entails walking large distances and risking our lives to detect the enemy positions. A reconnoitre takes two days. With a drone you can have much more information within two hours," Hrynyuk says.
After two flights, Master and his colleagues pack it in for that afternoon. "We immediately pass on any information we gather to the leaders of the battalion nearby. They can then take decisions," he says. "It's no secret that we are dealing with Russian armed forces. They have more resources and material. He who sees the enemy first wins."
Far from the front, in his workshop in the capital city of Kiev, 31-year-old drone technician Aleksandr is busy screwing parts of a UAV together. "The war is not like the second world war - that is, pitching one massive force against another," he says. "Today it is about taking the right positions and manoeuvring based on incoming information about the whereabouts of your enemy."
Aleksandr comes from Stakhanov, a town in the region that has been occupied by pro-Russian militias. For that reason, he doesn't want to reveal his family name or be photographed: "This is to protect my family." With two colleagues, Aleksandr runs a firm that assembles and repairs drones. It was originally for business clients, but his clients now include the army.
A soldier discusses the morning's enemy movements from the trenches on the front line of Hranitne, near Mariupol, southeast Ukraine
Aleksandr points to his computer screen. "Look how buildings have been destroyed," he says. You can see drone images of the outskirts of Avdiivka, a city of Donetsk - the militias' capital. "People used to live here, but now these buildings have been blown to bits and only their skeletons remain."
The drone that Aleksandr is repairing is a common consumer drone - in-store it would cost €1,000 (£900). The UAV can fly at 200 metres with a range of five kilometres. But it's different from the retail version: Aleksandr has modified the drone. "Where a civilian drone can't fly any more, ours still works. The mechanisms are similar but we make changes to its electrical systems. What we do exactly, that's a secret."
Unlike Master's unmanned aircraft, which maps entire areas and costs €12,000, these drones are mainly used to fly to a specific point, take photos and return straight away.
The Ukrainian army depends on volunteers such as Aleksandr to provide them with UAVs. They collect money for their acquisition and any repair work necessary if the vehicles are damaged.
"Fortunately, this drone returned," he says. "But often they don't. It takes off, but once in sight of the enemy, there's a 'boom' and then it bursts into a thousand little chips."
Because most soldiers have no experience with drones, Aleksandr also offers training. "In the early 2000s, the army had a fully functioning division dedicated to unmanned reconnaissance flights," Aleksandr says. "But that unit disappeared before the conflict with Russia started."
In Ukraine, it's generally assumed that Russia's secret service has been infiltrating the army for years in order to weaken it. Many official army units surrendered without resistance to the pro-Russian militias as soon as the conflict began.
"When the fighting erupted, it quickly became apparent that we were needed," Aleksandr says. He works six days a week, and is, by his own account, compelled to put his own money into the reparation of the drones. "We've never had any support from the Ministry of Defence or the army," he says.
"We can't do anything without volunteers," Master says. His "bird" was donated to the battalion by the Victory Sisters Foundation, which has donors in the UK. But the drone pilot adds that it's becoming difficult to find sponsors. "Many people are fed up with the war and are short of money because of the crisis." Aleksandr agrees: "Organising a collection, targeted at funding a drone for a battalion, for instance, is the only thing that still works. But it's time-consuming."
The most motivated volunteers come from the regions occupied by militants. "I've been attacked, so I have to defend myself," Aleksandr says. After the war broke out, he fled with his family to Kiev. "During a drone mission last autumn, I had just a glimpse of my city, far away on the horizon. But a drone can't narrow that distance for me."
In this, the third year of conflict in eastern Ukraine, Aleksandr's drones have become increasingly visible in the combat zone. "In the airspace over the Donbas region it's like a drone party in full swing," Alexander Hug, who heads the OSCE mission, said in September 2016. The group doesn't fly unmanned aircraft any more because they're shot down. As a result, exercising any supervision over the use of heavy weapons has become practically impossible.
"Military drones have a great future," Aleksandr says. "Drones have no fear and are capable of executing almost any task the army requires. That's something the government should think about." He is convinced that, in the future, wars will be fought with unmanned aerial vehicles.
For now, the army has to deal with the everyday reality of limited resources: the front line is hundreds of kilometres long and drone teams such as Master's are scarce. Frustration is mounting on the front line. "It's exhausting for soldiers to be bombarded daily by artillery fire," Master says. "There have been examples of boys being blown up by mines. Some lose their nerves and break; they have to be demobilised."
Master handles an unmanned surveillance aircraft two kilometres from front line town Shyrokyne in southeast Ukraine
"We feel as if our hands are tied," adds Hrynyuk. "In principle, we comply with the Minsk Agreement. But sometimes we have to return fire, to save the lives of our soldiers."
"We achieve nothing by signing ceasefires and Minsk Agreements," Aleksandr says. "We have to use violence to recover our territory, it's the only option. But I don't know how."
He pats the drone affectionately. "I give him kisses and love and then I send this drone back to the east again. You'll see, as soon as it gets there, it'll show some defects again. Sometimes it seems they don't want to return to the front line."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
