They escaped Ukraine’s frontlines. The sound of drones followed them

Pavlo, a 30 -year -old drone operator who recently returned from the front in a tight apartment in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, released a black case about the size of a pizza box. Inside, there was a four -rotor drone around the room where he intended to fly.

He pressed the buttons in the control unit and pushed the antenna to different positions. Nothing happened. “I’m sorry, not today,” he said with a smile. The unit looked good, but something was broken.

Pavlo, who only wanted to be defined only by his first name, was the pilot of the first -person view (FPV) drones. This small, extremely maneuverability drones has prominent cameras that allow them to fly away. During the past year, FPVs loaded with bombs were found everywhere on the fronts in Ukraine and replaced the heavy weapons that characterized the first stage of the war.

The FPVs chased armored vehicles, followed the infantry units Treelines and individual troops to their deaths. “You can’t hide from FPV and running is useless.” He said. “You’re trying to calm as much as possible and you pray.”

Even if a FPV is too high to see clearly or hidden behind the leaves, soldiers may hear their unique, high -curtain whimpering.

“Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz is not Pavlo. “You are hunting.”

More than a year ahead, Pavlo returned to the Kyiv apartment he shared with his wife. But the sound of the drones followed him. Daily mechanical vehicles such as grass, motorcycles and air conditioners remind him of the FPVs hunting him and his unit friends.

And nature is not an escape. Pavlo can no longer hear the sound of the bees, and the flies buzzing with him without a creeping panic. “I don’t like to go into nature anymore and hear it, because it reminds me of the drones very hard,” he said.

The trauma associated with voice is not new – for generations, the soldier was influenced by sudden sounds after returning to civilian life. However, when the war in Ukraine turned into a conflict directed by drone technology, the trauma developed with it.

“During the last year, the majority of patients – if they were not physically injured – have mental health injuries as a result of being under the activity of drone. He said. “We call it Dronophobia.”

Dr. Andriichenko said thousands of men returned from the front like Pavlo, with acute stress disorders associated with the sounds of drones. Dronephobia can be triggered in a series of ordinary urban voice – small motorcycles and scooters, lawn mowing machines, air conditioners – Whirrs is a mechanical thing.

“My first thought may be a drone,” he said.

Savur, who wanted to be defined by the call signature in accordance with the military protocol, said the drones on the front of the front is a “permanent voice”. “The sound of a shell lasts only a few seconds, but the sound of the dron is often there,” he said.

“In your position, you can reach out in the fox hole and listen for hours. I always remember this sound.”

Or sometimes the problem was the opposite – silence. Psychiatrist Dr. Andriichenko said, “Silence is always the beginning.” “When the soldiers go to rotation to fight positions, they start to listen carefully to ensure that there are no drones. Continuous tension, constant fear. They are always looking for.”

In many cases, this constant sense of tension has not been eliminated by return to civilian life. It was observed that the soldiers suddenly closed the lights at home, moved away from the windows and hidden under the furniture.

Later, if a soldier was seen for treatment, Dr. Andriichenko often explains how it does not have any memory of any triggering sound, but reveals that a wife or family member removing fan or air conditioner is opened.

The soldiers from the previous stages of the war – more ruthless, directly characterized by war – were afraid of being in the forests where most of the war took place. However, the drone war reversed the phenomenon. Psychiatrist, now the soldiers “intense tree canopy under the forests feel the safest,” he said. “And they are trying to avoid forests in their spare time.”

The increase in the use of drone had another terrorism effect for war troops – extended the danger zone more than the front. Soldiers who work up to 40km (25 miles) or withdrawn after a heavy rotation can no longer leave their protection.

Nazar Bokhii, the commander of a small drone unit, made a direct stroke in a Russian mortar position, 22 km away, was about 5 km from the contact line one day. Bokhii, who was successfully buoy, went out of the shelter and first forgot the stop protocol to listen to a Telltale buzz.

Meter away, a Russian FPV was walking around the air. As he moved towards him, Bokhii had time to raise his arms. In the explosion, he took both his hands and his left eye and burned his face badly.

Bokhii’s own PTSB was limited, dedi he said, occasionally a fear of fear to motorcycles and lawn mowing machines. But he knew the effect of the sound, because he said, because the unit used it to give others terrorism.

Bokhii, “We were the side of the voice that caused fear, we suffered from him.” He said.

At one point they noticed that the sound could be used to force Russian troops to the areas exposed. “You are buzzing around them and this is becoming a test of the psychological flexibility of this enemy.” He said. “The sound of the drone is a serious psychological attack.”

According to Bokhii, a soldier will leave a buzz and a strong shelter for a long time and just run to the open land. “Our psychology works to calm ourselves.” He said. “So you walk around and you are psychologically suppressing… And it starts to run and is easier to hit.”

And the psychological terror of FPV is no longer a problem on the façade. It has reached even the areas behind the front lines. Russia began to use FPVs to leave amplitude to civilians in the nearby Ukraine cities.

Among the worst hit, Kherson, who is occupied by the Russian forces for a while and is still a southern city in the drone range. According to the Human Rights Monitoring Organization, Russian forces deliberately targeted civilians in the city with FPV drones and killed or crippled them – a war crime.

According to regional military administration, at least 84 civilians were killed in the Kherson region as a result of Russian drone attacks this year.

Residents say that small FPVs are a daily terror.

“There’s no such thing as a safe place,” said Dmytro Olifirenko, a 23 -year -old border guard who lives in Kherson City. “You must always be awake, focused, and therefore the body is constantly under stress,” he said.

Olifirenko was waiting at a bus stop when he heard the familiar voice of a Russian drone hill in September. “We thought you’d follow the bus, because they were hunting civilian buses,” he said.

Instead, the drone only dropped his ammunition to the bus station and sent shrapnel to his head, face and leg of Olifirenko. The video of the event, which was filmed by an audience, caught the buzz of the drone, and then olifirenko’s screaming on the sidewalk.

Olifirenko said now that he heard the drones “constantly”, he said, whether or not. “He’s hitting your mental and psychological health a lot,” he said. “Even when you leave for mykolaiv or another city, you are constantly trying to listen.”

For civilians like Oliferenko, drones turned the ordinary sounds of a popular area – cars, motorcycles, generators, lawn mower, air conditioners – the drones have turned into a psychological glove for civilians to run every day, even though they struggled with the real danger of drones.

For soldiers who returned from the front like Pavlo, drones created a new and special fear that was not easy to shake.

“You see the world as a battlefield, Pav Pavlo said. “Any second can be a war area.”

And from all triggers, hearing – human sense drones were so effectively exploited – the most insidious.

“When you see something, you can control your brain in a second, you can understand how fast it is.

“But an unknown voice is different. Your brain has changed. You cannot ignore it, you must answer. Because it can save your life on the front line.”

Svitlana Libet contributed to this report. Photos of Joel Gunter.