It’s a new kind of war. In the
“kill zone” of Ukraine, surveillance and attack drones swarm the skies, hunting anything that moves.
There’s no more massing of troops and artillery. Instead, soldiers on both sides hide for months at a time in tiny, isolated foxholes to survive.
Soldiers move in small groups to dodge detection, often on foot or motorbike. Even then, the drones hunt them mercilessly. Casualties are staggering.
Our immersive reconstruction will take you deep into the kill zone, a strip of land about 30 km (20 miles) wide in some places that straddles the line of contact. In this hellscape, buildings lie in ruins and trees are shredded.
A terrifying game of hide-and-seek is playing out in this deadly corridor that snakes along the 1,200 km-long (750-mile) front line in Ukraine.
The war, well into its fifth year, has become the first major conflict to be dominated by unmanned aerial vehicles, with thousands of the cheap but deadly machines filling the skies.
Ukraine and invader Russia are constantly advancing the new technology, which is transforming modern warfare. Both sides have had to abandon age-old tactics of gathering troops, vehicles and artillery in a relatively compressed area along the front lines. Such visible targets are easy prey for drones.
Instead, teams as small as two to three soldiers hide in tiny dugouts hollowed under the ground, scattered across a huge kill zone extending many kilometres on either side of the line of contact between the two sides. Infantrymen often act as lookouts, avoiding direct engagement that could give away their position, instead calling in drones to do the killing, said an officer in leading Ukrainian drone brigade Madyar’s Birds, who goes by the callsign Silhouette.
Drones are guided by pilots hiding in the kill zone or further away who fly them using video game-style controls. Many are first-person view (FPV) craft, allowing the pilot to see the scene from the drone’s perspective in real time. They are controlled either through radio signals or via long, ultra-fine fibre optic cables stretching behind the drones.
This graphical illustration is the most detailed reconstruction yet of the new breed of battlefront. It will take you into the kill zone via a “fly-over” that starts 15 km inside Russian-held territory before heading to the contact line between the two sides and then 15 km further into Ukrainian-held land.
Map of Ukraine highlighting Russian-occupied territory and the front line. A 30-kilometre-wide “kill zone” along the battlefield illustrates how pervasive drone surveillance can make nearly any movement visible and potentially lethal.
A 30-kilometre-wide “kill zone” along the battlefield illustrates how pervasive drone surveillance can make nearly any movement visible and potentially lethal.
The illustration isn’t a recreation of any particular stretch of the front but features a concentration of scenes from multiple sectors that show how the armies operate and engage. It is based on dozens of first-hand accounts from Ukrainian soldiers, drone pilots and commanders, as well as interviews with military experts and hundreds of battlefield videos posted online by units on both sides.
Reuters was unable to interview members of Russia’s military for this article because of tight restrictions in Russia on reporting the conflict. The Russian defence ministry did not respond to questions about the changing nature of the battlefield.
The Russian-held side of the fly-over focuses more on attacks and Ukraine’s attempts to thwart them, reflecting the dominant dynamic of the battlefield over the last two years. The Ukrainian side focuses on supply lines, rotations and evacuations.
Gaining ground is perilous, often involving huge risk for minimal territory, helping explain how Ukraine has been able to slow Russian advances significantly over the past year despite being outnumbered and outgunned by conventional weapons.
Russian-held territory
A 3D flyover of the 15 kilometres of territory behind Russian front-line positions. The scene reveals artillery batteries, drone launch sites, trenches, and other military infrastructure under continuous drone surveillance. The visualization shows how the widespread threat from reconnaissance, bomber, and FPV drones has pushed Russian forces to carry out attacks in small teams and fast motorcycle infiltrations to avoid being detected and struck from the air.
How far the kill zone extends at any given stretch of the front depends on numerous factors, including the quality of the drone units there and the landscape. The days of heavy mechanised manoeuvres are over; a drone costing a few thousand dollars can disable a tank worth millions. Long trenches open to the skies have become obsolete. Fibre optic cables trailing behind drones settle upon the landscape like spider webs.
Russian forces mainly gain territory by infiltrating Ukraine’s porous defences. Low cloud and heavy fog can act as cover. Ukraine does not have enough soldiers, so its infantry is thinly scattered, leaving wide gaps to sneak through.
If soldiers find an empty building or bunker in Ukrainian-held territory, they may wait there for several days while another Russian tries to join them, followed by another. “Over 10 days, you end up with five Russian soldiers inside. That’s it – they’ve taken a position,” said Roman Polishchuk, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Liut brigade.
Casualties are massive, with the vast majority now caused by drones. The Center for Strategic & International Studies estimates around 2 million soldiers since early 2022 have been killed, wounded or are missing, 1.4 million of them Russian.
A deputy battalion commander in Ukraine’s 59th Assault Brigade, with the callsign Prime, described relentless pursuits: “If a drone spots an infantryman, it won’t let him go.”
In the age of drone warfare, pilots themselves are prized targets, said Danylo Polozhukhno, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Kraken unmanned systems regiment: “We find them and destroy them.”
Ukrainian-held territory
A 3D flyover of the Ukrainian-controlled side of the front. The graphic shows a contested grey zone, defensive positions, drone attacks, and gaps in the line exploited by Russian infiltrators. It follows three soldiers struck by drones, the rescue of a wounded serviceman, and the growing battle between Ukrainian anti-drone road networks and Russian fibre-optic drones, while long-range drones continue to threaten areas far behind the front.
Sources for map: Institute for the Study of War (ISW) & AEI Critical Threats Project.
Video verification by Pola Grzanka, Fernando Robles, Tiffany Le, Maria Laguna and Vinaya K; Additional reporting by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Pravin Char and Mike Collett-White