But the escort of armored vehicles and refueling trucks stopped within days and the attack failed, largely due to a series of night ambushes carried out by a group of 30 Ukrainian special forces and four-wheeled drone pilots, according to a Ukrainian commander. The drone pilots come from an air reconnaissance unit, Aerorozvidka, which started eight years ago as a team of volunteer IT specialists and hobbyists designing their own machines and has become a key element of Ukraine’s successful David-and-Goliath resistance. . However, while Western supporters in Ukraine have supplied thousands of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment, Aerorozvidka has been forced to resort to crowdfunding and a personal contact network to keep up with advanced modems such as advanced modems and export controls prohibiting their shipment to Ukraine. The commander of the unit, Lieutenant Colonel Yaroslav Honchar, gave a description of the ambush near the city of Ivankiv that helped stop the huge, Russian logging attack in its wake. He said Ukrainian four-wheeled fighters were able to approach the Russian column, which was advancing at night through the forest on either side of the road leading south to Kyiv in the direction of Chernobyl. The Ukrainian soldiers were equipped with night-vision goggles, sniper rifles, remote-controlled mines, drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras and others capable of dropping small 1.5-kilogram bombs. “This small unit at night destroyed two or three vehicles on the head of this escort and then got stuck. They stayed there another two nights, and [destroyed] a lot of vehicles, “Honchar said. A drone is assembled by the Aerorozvidka unit. Photo: Aerorozvidka The Russians broke the column in smaller units to try to advance on the Ukrainian capital, but the same attack group was able to attack its supply depot, he claimed, crippling the Russians’ ability to advance. “The first rung of the Russian force was stuck without heat, without oil, without bombs and without gas. “And it all happened because of the work of 30 people,” Honchar said. The Aerorozvidka unit also claims to have helped defeat a Russian air strike on Hostomel Airport, northwest of Kiev, on the first day of the war, using drones to locate, target and bomb about 200 Russian paratroopers hiding in the air. . “This greatly contributed to the fact that they could not use this airport to further develop their attack,” said Lt. Taras, one of Honchar’s aides. It was not possible to verify all the details of these allegations independently, but U.S. defense officials said the Ukrainian attacks helped cut off the armored column around Ivankiv. The huge volume of aerial combat shots published by the Ukrainians underscores the importance of drones for their resistance. The unit was started by young, university-educated Ukrainians who took part in the Maidan Uprising in 2014 and volunteered to use their technical skills in the resistance against the first Russian invasion of Crimea and the Donbas region. Its founder, Volodymyr Kochetkov-Sukach, was an investment banker killed in action in 2015 in Donbass – a reminder of the high risks involved. The Russians can get stuck in the drone’s electronic signature and hit fast with mortars, so the Aerorozvidka teams have to launch and run. Honchar is a former soldier who became an IT marketing consultant who returned to the military after the first Russian invasion. Taras was a management consultant who specialized in raising funds for the unit and joined full-time as a fighter only in February. In its early days, the unit used commercial surveillance drones, but its team of engineers, software designers and drone enthusiasts later developed their own designs. They built a series of unmanned surveillance aircraft, as well as large eight-meter long 1.5-rotor engines capable of dropping bombs and anti-tank grenades, and set up a system called the Delta, a network of sensors along the front line that fed a digital commanders to be able to see the enemy’s movements as they occurred. It now uses the Starlink satellite system provided by Elon Musk to feed live data to Ukrainian artillery units, allowing them to zero in on Russian targets. The unit was disbanded in 2019 by the then Minister of Defense, but was revived in a hurry in October last year, as the Russian threat of invasion was emerging. The ability to maintain an aerial view of Russian movements was crucial to the success of Ukraine’s guerrilla tactics. But Aerorozvidka’s efforts to expand and replace lost equipment were hampered by the limited supply of drones and accessories, and their efforts to secure them through the Ministry of Defense’s supplies were ineffective, in part because they were a recent addition to the armed forces. . In addition, some of the most advanced modems and thermal imaging cameras made in the US and Canada are subject to export controls, so they resort to crowdfunding and ask a global network of friends and supporters to find them on eBay or other sites. Marina Borozna, who was a college economics student with Taras, is exploring ways to buy what the unit needs and find ways to transport supplies across borders. “I know there are people who want to help them fight, people who want to do more than just help,” Borozna said. “If you want to tackle the root cause of this human suffering, you have to defeat the Russian invasion. “Aerorozvidka is making a huge difference and they need our support.” Her partner, Klaus Hendritz, a molecular biologist in Cambridge, is also helping the effort, drawing on his experience as a conscript in the German army. “I was in an artillery reconnaissance unit myself, so I immediately realized the big impact that Aerorozvidka has. “They are essentially turning a blind eye to their artillery,” Hendrich said. “What we can do to make a difference is to garner international support, whether it is financial contributions, or helping to acquire more scarce technical components or donating common unmanned aircraft.” The unit is also looking at ways to overcome the Russian blockade, part of the electronic warfare being waged in Ukraine alongside bombs, shells and missiles. At the moment, Aerorozvidka typically waits for the Russians to turn off their interference equipment to launch their own drones and then sends its engines at the same time. The unit then concentrates its firepower on electronic warfare vehicles. Honchar describes these technological battles and how Aerorozvidka fought the future of war, where swarms of small groups networked with mutual trust and advanced communications can crush a larger and heavier-armed adversary. “We are like a beehive,” he said. “A bee is nothing, but if you are faced with a thousand, a great power can be defeated. “We are like bees, but we work at night.”
