Soaring Russian drone attacks sap Ukraine’s defence and morale

Vitaliy and his men have no fixed post – their weaponry for shooting down the Shaheds is carried on the back of a flatbed truck, allowing them to manoeuvre quickly.

“We try to monitor, move, outpace the drone, destroy it,” he said.

It’s clear the job is taking its toll.

“Half a year ago, it was 50 drones a month. Now the number has risen to 100 drones, every night,” he said.

Their days are getting longer too. When the Russians used mainly missiles to bomb Ukraine, the unit commander said, the air alerts would last about six hours. “Now, it’s around 12 or 13 hours,” he said.

Vitaliy is confident in front of his men, declaring that they can handle all that the Russians can fire at them if they get weapons from Western allies. “Our guys could even deal with 250 drones [in a night],” he said.

But air defence can only do so much. Ukrainians will continue to suffer until Russia stops its invasion and its air assaults on cities.

Viktoria says their lives are now divided into before and after their daughter’s death. They are staying with a friend after the destruction of their flat; she said they sleep in the corridor at night to shelter from the constant drone attacks.