Ukraine’s sky defenders in Sumy stuck in relentless battle

Evening light, a handful of Ukraine soldiers, a handful of Ukraine military to face a unique struggle emerged. Mission – hit the 21st century killer drones with weapons designed in the dying days of the First World War.

Tonight is a war in the northeastern region of Sumy, which surrounds Russia in Ukraine.

Immediately after joining the troops, there was danger in the sky and tension and adrenaline on the earth.

The Jaeger, the Commander-Cod, was glued to a screen showing a red spot clusters showing a shahed drone of Iran, one of Russia’s key weapons. In the early hours of the evening, there were 30 in the sky in the neighboring area of ​​Sumy and Chernihiv.

Two flat -bed trucks, a heavy machine gun and a artillery behind a clarity was put into an opening scanning the sky. Trucks are surrounded by troops, light machine guns.

Before seeing the drone, we could hear the glitters of the propellers – it can be barely seen because it was sliced ​​from the sky. The troops opened fire – all the weapons are burning together – but the drone disappeared to the distance. These low -cost long -range weapons are terrorizing Ukraine.

As in the war, there were humor glare. “You will know when the next drone came when that short man gets stressed, Ja Jaeger said, pointing to one of his team.

As the darkness closed, the drones continued to come and the troops continued to try – the audience sent the fire to the sky. But how do they feel when these suicide drones pass?

“Well, it’s not very good,” Jaeger says, looking at it. “You feel a slight sadness, but to be honest – as you can see – you don’t have time for emotions. One comes in and the other can come immediately behind. You work in this rhythm. If it is downloaded – well, if not, you know there are other teams behind you.”

He and his men are a “mobile fire unit” from Ukraine’s 117 Regional Defense Brigade – not only their country, but also their countries. Most Russian drones fly out of this area and fly deeper Ukraine.

“They come with big waves, they usually fly at different heights,” Jaeger says. “When there is a heavy cloud cover, they fly over the clouds and we can’t see them. It is very difficult to detect them when it rains.”

One night is standard for shahed drone Sumy.

The unit contains a farmer (“now I’m doing something else in the fields”, joking) and contains a builder. Jaeger himself is a former forest guard and a mixed martial arts warrior.

Now he’s fighting an enemy he can barely see.

“Every day the same thing again again, or he says. “Like Groundhog day for us.”

“The worst thing is years,” he adds.

That night, most of the drones in the sky on Sumy turned to the capital Kiev. Jaeger and his men knew that. So are we. Information was creepy.

An air attack warning warned the inhabitants of Kiev residents. According to the Ukraine Air Force, Russia targeted more than 300 overnight. Six places were shot in the morning and the victims were recovered from the rubble. On the following days Death Member rose to 30.

In the fourth summer of Ukraine’s full -scale war, the fields around Sumy are concrete triangles that can stop tanks on their tracks with dotted corn and sunflower, which are not yet blooming with corn and sunflower.

The picture was very different last autumn. The Ukrainian troops seized the region in the neighboring region of Kursk and turned the tables with a cross -border attack on Russia.

Until March this year, the Ukrainian military chief has recently said that it has still had some land there, most of them have been forced. Until May, President Zelensky warned that 50,000 Russian troops were mass “in the direction of Sumy”.

Until June, more than 200 villages and settlements in Sumy were released because the Kremlin’s men slowly set out forward.

President Putin wants a “buffer zone” along the border and talks about the threat to Sumy.

“City… Next, Regional Center,” he said lately. “We don’t have a duty to take Sumy, but I don’t exclude it.” He claims that the forces are already 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) in the region.

WARNING: contains sad details in the section below

Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the President of the Ukrainian Army, claims that their troops have stopped Russian progress, but the war was closed in Margareta Husakova, who has already threatening his village. He warned his sister not to come because there were explosions.

“Still came,” says Margareta, “and he was quiet and peaceful for a month until he got on that bus.”

On the morning of May 17, sisters set out with other relatives for a trip to the city.

Margareta, “I remember how we came, we got on the bus, how we laugh, we were happy.” Says. “Then we started to leave and happened.”

The bus was torn apart by a Russian plane, In an attack that killed nine – all civilians – including his mother, uncle and sister.

Margaryta was now withdrawn from the wreckage with a shredded right arm held together with steel sticks.

He is tortured by what he lost and what they see. His description is graph.

Im I opened my eyes and there was no bus, dedi his voice said, he started to break. “I looked around and my sister’s head was torn. My mother was lying there, hit the temple. My uncle fell off the bus, his brain was exposed.”

We met at a reception center with sandbag for release in Sumy. Margareta sat outside on a wooden bench and sought comfort from cigarettes. He told me that another relative was planning to go to his house, but he was afraid that his eight children might not be safe there.

“Maybe we’ll have to escape even more,” he said: “Everywhere scary.”

“I was terrified for children, not for myself. I have to save them. This is the important thing.”

An air strike cried from the top while talking Siren – so familiar that Margaryta didn’t answer. There was no one else around us. “Now we’re just running for explosions,” a Ukrainian journalist “and just high and close”.

Sumy has little talk from the ceasefire of the ceasefire without putting an end to Europe’s largest war since 1945.

US President Donald Trump no longer claims to provide peace in Ukraine within a day. Iran entered a new war that bombed its nuclear areas.

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine gave only the return of prisoner stock exchanges and bodies. President Putin seems encouraged and increases his demands.

As the summer sun still passes through the hill, those who try to save Ukraine are waiting for more winter. In order to meet fresh troops from the front lines, we watched a track depths depths. They took a refreshing course for gun skills in a remote education field. A 35-year-old shaved-headed and full beard group with hardened war-the call for “student”.

“I think the war will not end for a year or two,” he said. “And even if it ends with a ceasefire in six months, it will start again within four or five years. President Putin has imperialist ambitions.”

War gives unprecedented wounds.

“Student” sent his family for security shortly after Russia’s full -scale invasion in February 2022, and since then he has not seen two daughters.

He and his wife are now divorced. The other soldiers we encountered talked about broken relationships and marriages twisted under difficulty.

Student war summarizes as “blood, dirt and sweat” and does not try to hide the cost. “We joined our battalion as 30 neighboring teams,” he said.

“Today, only four of us survive.”

Wietske Bryema, Moose Campbell and Volodymyr Lozhko’s additional reports