“Drone vs. Drone.” There is no more trench warfare in Ukraine, a quick solution to the problem of the “kill zone” created by Bp

Politico writes about this on Tuesday, November 18, indicating that there is no longer a continuous front line, as drones have turned it into a “kill zone” (the territory adjacent to the front line, which is under constant enemy fire).

The publication notes that the sky above the frontline is littered with drones, some of which are equipped with cameras and thermal imagers, while others are armed with bombs and guns. There are UAVs lurking near trails and roads, waiting for their target.

“As a result, a gray zone of chaos was formed, stretching about 20 kilometers from the front line,” writes Politico.

There, UAVs hunt for soldiers, and the wounded remain to die, as it is extremely difficult to evacuate them. Also, due to the huge number of drones, it is almost impossible to deliver ammunition, food and water to the warring units.

In a comment to Politico, the deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Pavlo Palisa stated that “we’ve moved into drone vs. drone warfare.” He added that UAVs can already set up ambushes, disrupt supplies, and make it difficult to hold positions.

According to Ivan Sekach, the speaker of the 110th separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, fighting in the east of the Dnipropetrovsk region, trenches on the battlefields of the Russian Federation’s war against Ukraine began to disappear in 2023-2024. To compensate for the lack of manpower and weapons, Ukrainian defenders began to rely on drones. In response, the Russian occupiers decided to reduce the number of their assault units, as Ukrainian drones quickly identified and destroyed their places of concentration.

Now the enemy uses the tactics of small infantry groups. They are more difficult to detect with the help of drones, especially in bad weather.

“As a result, we got a deep gray zone, where the Russians infiltrate behind Ukrainian positions and hide there, multiplying if they are not detected and destroyed,” Politico quotes Ivan Sekach.

Thus, the Russian occupiers took advantage of the bad weather to break through to Pokrovsk, Donetsk region, and other points along the front.

Drones also force artillery away from the front line and make using armored vehicles to supply troops an impossible task. Evacuation of the wounded and rotation, as well as logistics, became deadly. According to the spokesman of the Defense Forces of the South, Vladyslav Voloshyn, “now most of the soldiers die during rotation.” He added that all deliveries are associated with huge risks and that is why drones are used more often.

As a result, soldiers are forced to stay for weeks “at zero” without rotation.

Drones also make it difficult to evacuate the wounded. As Darya, an anesthesiologist of the Vovka Da Vinci battalion, told Politico, now the wounded fighter has to “walk, he is carried or even crawled up to five kilometers from his position to a place where he can be picked up by an armored evacuation vehicle.”

Then the evacuation vehicle makes its way through the clouds of Russian drones, which can continue to attack 20-40 kilometers from the front line. The drones also forced Ukrainian military medics to move stabilization points further from the front line.

“Wounded fighters have to remain at their positions for days, even weeks, waiting for evacuation, which is now sometimes carried out by ground-based robotic systems,” writes Politico.

The inability to reach the wounded has forced Ukrainian medics to turn to telemedicine, using Mavic drones to communicate with wounded soldiers and their fellow soldiers. Drones are also becoming useful for delivering medical supplies to positions.

Politico emphasizes that there is currently no quick fix “killzones” created by drones.