In the Shadow of the Front

Beyond a checkpoint north of Kharkiv, an old road sign puts the Russian city of Belgorod about 70 kilometers (43 miles) away. Yet the nearest Russian soldiers are much closer.

Leaving the city behind, the road winds through a belt of villages well in range of the front’s danger. Russian troops occupied these settlements early in the full-scale invasion, before Ukrainian forces reclaimed them in stages from spring to September 2022.

Beside the road, deep anti-tank ditches and wire obstacles now guard against a renewed Russian advance. While Kharkiv’s parks are still meticulously tended, sustaining its reputation as Ukraine’s cleanest city, the defenses beyond it have thickened since the beginning of the year. Military pickups appear more frequently, moving fast between the villages and Ukrainian positions holding the line beyond Lyptsi, toward Hlyboke and Lukyantsi.

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Roofless houses stand among overgrown gardens and ruins as protective netting follows the dips and rises of the countryside. Smoke hovers above the fields, though the frontline trenches remain out of sight.

Rain sets in along the route. A wrecked bridge leaves little prospect of getting through, forcing the car to turn back. Nearby, an older woman in a green poncho is making her way through the downpour on crutches.

She accepts a lift, visibly relieved to be spared the walk. At the next bus stop, she joins a group of other older people waiting for a ride into Kharkiv. Public transport continues to run and mail still arrives, preserving connections between settlements where schools and many businesses remain closed. Most of the civilians visible along these roads are of her generation, making their way between homes and the few services still available.

Among a short row of houses, an open door offers little hint of the shop within. A motorcyclist pulls up and slips inside.

Along another route north, two soldiers stand with their rifles, looking into the sky. Beside them, a small roadside shelter is almost lost beneath camouflage netting.

“We are targeting low-flying aircraft – FPVs, Shaheds or Molniyas,” says the tall soldier, who goes by the call sign Samali.

The 51-year-old stands with his feet planted wide apart.

“Our job is to stop them getting through and shoot down as many as possible, so local people and vehicles don’t get hit.”

Before volunteering at the start of the full-scale invasion, he worked as a driver in the Boryspil district near Kyiv. His service began in the confusion of those first days.

“The recruitment offices were overcrowded, so we organized ourselves in our communities.”

Since then, he has watched successive waves of new weapons and tactics reshape the fighting. “The war has completely changed.”

Russian drones increasingly operate in groups. Molniyas and Shaheds, themselves used for strikes, now also transport smaller attack drones over distances the FPVs could not cover on their own – as many as three on a single carrier.

“The Molniya flies at a very high altitude and releases them,” Samali says. “They fly off it and descend, saving their batteries.”

If one aircraft is lost, another can take over. Reconnaissance drones locate targets from above and guide the attacks. A Molniya can also serve as an airborne radio relay, extending the connection between FPVs and their operators.

Some of these smaller drones, including fiber-optic models, land and wait until a vehicle or a person appears. Equipped with larger cable spools, the fiber-optic drones can now reach farther, extending the area in which they can lie in wait.

Inside the shelter, sunlight falls through gaps in the camouflage netting onto cigarette packets and bottles of water. Rifles, a machine gun and shotguns lie within reach. On the table, the Shcheznyk’s display shows the landscape from above.

The Ukrainian-made device intercepts video feeds from drones, giving the soldiers the same view as their Russian operators. They study the road and vegetation for clues to the aircraft’s course.

Experienced pilots know their transmissions may be intercepted.

“It flies toward the net, then the pilot tilts the camera upward and goes underneath,” Samali says. “We can’t see where it’s going anymore, but we’ve already seen its approach.”

Then the buzz of a drone cuts through the air as the detector sounds an alert, sending both men back outside, weapons ready.

Gunfire breaks the quiet, leaving spent cartridge cases scattered around the position.

The machine gun can engage drones out to around 200 meters, according to the soldiers. Between 10 and 15 drones may be detected at their position each day, sometimes more. Those that fly within range leave little time to aim and fire.

As the firing subsides, both men return beneath the netting and light cigarettes. A cyclist passes along the road outside.

Samali serves in a neighboring unit; his companion, Kolobok, belongs to the National Guard’s 13th Khartiia Brigade.

His family lives near Northern Saltivka, the Kharkiv district whose apartment blocks were devastated early in the invasion. He has 12-year-old twins, a boy and a girl.

His manner is contained, his expression occasionally breaking into a mischievous grin.

“All my relatives are here. Even when the war started, nobody went anywhere. Everyone stayed,” Kolobok says. “Nobody wanted to leave. Not for Kyiv, not anywhere.”

He has little patience for those who left the city and abandoned their businesses. “The way I see it, they came here, lived here, made a mess and left. Of course that hurts.”

His call sign comes from the round bread character of a familiar folk tale, a reference to his work in Kharkiv’s bread factories. The 42-year-old has worked in several civilian trades, including construction, before most recently selling crockery at Barabashovo market.

“Nine-story buildings, five-story buildings – brick buildings. Anything involving brick and reinforced concrete, that’s my trade.”

Not far away, cars pull up outside a small roadside bakery. Customers in camouflage step inside and emerge carrying paper bags. Pastries fill the glass counter; packets of sweets crowd the shelves behind it.

Samali and Kolobok often stop here, too, for coffee and a few words with the owner, their weapons still slung over their shoulders.

Once, she recalls, a drone slipped beneath the protective netting and appeared directly outside the window. Customers were drinking coffee inside. Everyone dropped to the floor. The aircraft was disrupted electronically, she says, and the soldiers shot it down.

Samali regards the attacks on Kharkiv as an attempt to wear down the people who remain.

“They’re trying to create chaos and panic in the city so people will make the concessions they’re demanding more quickly.”

Russian drones have repeatedly struck filling stations in Kharkiv and on its outskirts this year, hitting fuel stops used by civilians and soldiers alike.

“We don’t need neighbors like that.”

Back in the car, each kilometer north brings fewer signs of habitation.

Ruins stand on either side. The road continues beneath the mesh until, farther along, the netting ends too.

There is almost no sound except for detonations in the distance.

Dogs emerge from gaps between buildings and the overgrown edges of the road. One approaches, hesitates, then comes a little closer. Others follow at a distance. Their coats are rough, their bodies lean. They sniffed among the debris for scraps, curious about the arrival but wary of coming within reach. They seem to be the last remaining residents here.

Winter is approaching. Rain will give way to frost along these roads, and the people waiting at the bus stops will have another season to endure in villages already stripped of so much.

In Kharkiv, further attacks on energy infrastructure threaten heat and electricity as temperatures fall.

Samali expects the technology to keep changing. Interceptor drones are taking on more of the work of bringing down other aircraft.

“Our defense system is more integrated now, our air defense is stronger, and there’s more communication.”

Still, as detection improves, attackers adjust their methods. The devices on the table and the weapons carried outside may change again over the coming months.

Even so, he does not expect technology to make men like him unnecessary. “I think there will always be work for us.”