volunteers test a fleet of drones conducting final
checks before deploying these e in the sky to the
front line. This is our like magic elves, they know
they know everything most mostly all of them are
civilians and volunteers. Yeah volunteers, Alexis
Shevchenko, just back from the fighting and headed
there again, leads the drone squad. Now you're not in
the military itself. His drones act as spotters for
Ukrainian artillery, pinpointin Russian positions to
deadly effect drones helped to coordinate the hitting
point. You know, the bullseye along with the militar
forces, you decide which target we will attack. And
after that drone goes to the to the spot and starts to
coordinate the fire. These are my targets and my old
targets. I've seen Russian military forces burning With
the help of our drones. Our artillery software is being
used by 1995% of our artillery guys. Armed forces. I
mean, so you can imagine how much damage that has cost.
I believe that drones are playing a huge role like
extremely huge. This is video of a typical strike
during a battle in the east, notice the flat terrain
using human spotters here would be suicide. The drones
hover above to identify the target and confirm the kill.
Mostly we are taking out the gathering of the armed
vehicles, enemy artillery positions, um warehouses with
ammunition or fool the drone team then communicates
back to the artillery fighters to help them recalibra
before firing more rounds. It's a big difference when
you're firing your artillery gun and I don't know
anything where you hit and when you fire in it and you
see an online picture or somebody from your guys season
like picture tells you exactly where you hit wherever
they set up their base of operations. They try to be
stealthy hiding their drones and themselves from the
Russians. Have any of them been injured, killed, no
injured. Yes but killed. Thanks God we tried to To be
careful as much as possible. It takes about 15 minutes
to set up everything 15-20 minutes. Yeah we have a
drone which have been shot for six or seven times and
then they are still flying still flying. How is that
possible I'm sure they are flying right now while we're
talking with you, how is that possible They're made of
form wings. And what happens when bullet goes throug
the form It goes like through the bottom If necessity
is the mother of invention. This is where the inventing
gets done a secret key of workshop where the drones ar
built and repaired from parts that cost around $5,000.
That's a fraction of the cost of armed military drones
like the now famous Turkish Bayraktar or the high tech
suicide switch blades from the U.S. Unlike those drones,
these don't have the capacity to kill at least not
directly, but as the war becomes increasingly define
by artillery and artillery battles, the combined effect
of spotter drones and big guns is just as deadly. Do
things change it all for you now that Ukraine is
getting some of the long range artillery from the U.S.I
think it will make a huge change. What changes uh we
will gain a much higher fire rate from outside because
when you when you shoot you are the target already so
you have to you gotta move, you gotta move to differe
locations. So all the artillery Russians, our artille
Ukrainians, they are constantly shifting and that's how
it goes right now. So it's a game, it's a game. Yeah,
it's a tactical game right now. It's like real war. The
Russians also deploy surveillance drones but Savchen
says his are better like the difference between a Tesla
and a diesel truck. Our drones are electrical and they
have engine drones, they are very loud and they have
their bigger, they can fly longer and they have to
operate much higher when they do it, they are getting
shot by stinker for example, our drones can be hit with
the rocket launcher because it doesn't produce this
much heat. But the Russians are good. Shevchenko s
at jamming the GPS signals, his drones need in order to
navigate that and human error has doomed more than a
few drones. What's a bad experience that you've had My
bad experience was 10 days ago. I crashed drawn. So
yeah, because because I didn't react the way I should
have. But in the end of the day, looking back to these
two months, we, we have done a lot, We have done a lot
situation. Jason Bellini joins us from Kiev tonight.
Jason. This fight continues to go poorly for Russian
troops. They aren't taking any new territory. A top
Russian general just narrowly missed an attack in the
Donbas Britain reports up to a quarter of all Russian
units in Ukraine aren't combat ready either because
they don't have enough troops or weapons. Is it fair to
describe this war right now as a horrific stalemate
where Russians just keep attacking civilians and
Ukrainians keep defending their territory. I'm read so
well, that's exactly what it appears to be at the
moment. It certainly uh, describes what's happening now
in Kharkiv. Ukraine's second largest city. President
Zelensky was warning residents just the other day that
they really need to hold out there indefinitely, th
they're like the relentless Russian bombing is unlikely
to end anytime soon. Villages on the outskirts of car
Keys where Ukrainian forces are trying to push back
against the Russians, but there hasn't been significant
movement for either side there. Um, but I have to say
stalemate appears to be the best Ukrainian forces can
hope for at this moment. Jason Bellini, great re
Please stay safe out there And the impact of the fight,