Oleksandr sits in the warm light of the kitchen with a cigarette between his fingers. He has the name of his wife and a tattoo on his hand. “Come, come,” he says, waving to make smoking with him. He and his wife Natalia decided to allow the soldiers to stay in their home for free. Their son, Vitalii, with pedestrians in one of the most important locations in the front line, in Boukerrovsk, comes naturally for the couple to offer a meal, a place to rest, a little warmth to the unit of Yivin.
Natalia prepares potato pies for her husband and soldiers.
The soldiers eat and speak with the elderly couple, but their work for this day has not yet ended. They prepare the equipment and upload pictures and videos collected from the drone. Throughout the evening, a ton of drone enemy is close, heading towards the center of Ukraine.
Late at night, the laptop screen lights up a walking face as it lies in his bag for sleeping, watching a movie. Jehn, heading to a cigarette, looks at the shoulder. He says, “This is my movie.”
“I know,” he answers my walk, a wide smile.
SERHIY on the laptop, with YEVHEN (left) and DMYTRO in the background, at Oleksander and Natalia’s House
Before the war, Jehn was an actor. He calls it again and again “a different life” or “life of peace”. The war divided his life into two unknown halves. He points to the screen where his movie plays, saying: “The director is in the army now.” Then, “This actor is in the army as well. This was killed in Kupiansk.” Temporary stop. “And for him – he has died too.”
Yevhen joined the army as soon as the comprehensive invasion began. “Once the war ends, I would like to be a representative again,” he says. “But even if I can, I don’t know if I can shoot movies now. I have closed my mind from some things in war. I don’t have sympathy like an actor now. However, my country needs a defender now, not an actor.”
Yevhen in the movie “Rhino” in 2021, along with Serhii Filimonov, who is now inherent in the famous Da Vinci Wolfs battalion.
In the morning, the green truck accelerates the newly fraught trenches, curls from barbed wire, and dragon teeth lines to the tree in which the mantle hide is hidden. The trees tremble in the cold wind.
Men move through their usual routine, just join a fourth member, Volodimir. Today, the drone carries a bomb, and this changes the launch procedure. Fire imbalance can bomb the net load, so Serhiy combines together Trebuchet supported by a car battery to format the drone in the air.
The YEVHEN unit usually raises drones with warfare warmths made of missiles, but today they use retailers. They are the nominations that were rescued from the Russian group of ammunition. Jehn laughs, “The Russians sent them here, and they did not succeed. No problem – we will recycle them and send them to recover the money.”
Parts of RPG and explosives scattered in the courtyard are located where the unit is preparing.
In the truck, a red warning via the screen – sliding bombs. One sliding bomb can settle an eight -storey building. The first two land on the horizon, send black mushroom clouds. Then the air is cracked above and the third dance in the field next to them. The explosion throws dirt and shrapnel in all directions. The shock wave branches, and men go to the hideout while the dirt and shrapnel bathe.
silence. Then they climb my walk, and brush the dust from its jacket. He picks up a piece of serrated fragments that fell less than a meter from where Yivhen was standing when ice bombs exploded. Check the truck. “Permanent wheels?”
Yevhen is seen. “no.”
No more discussion. After years of fighting, close calls become routine. Men return to their work without a word. Serhiy is validated by Trebuchet tension. DMYTRO confirms drone systems. Jehn gives a final gesture.
“Three, two, one – move away.”
Serhiy and Volodymyr Trebucheet carry the edge of the field, where it will be used to launch a Pugac drone in the air.
Trebuche settled forward, and the drone is released in the sky. Fortunately, the clouds are high enough today. The screen shows the battlefield sculpted months of war. Below, artillery shells explode along the front, and the dense smoke clouds are sent in the sky.
“We will reach the goal,” says Yivhin.
I ignore my walk. “We’ll see what is happening.”
“You are not romantic.”
“I am realistic.”
Men laugh.
On the screen, the target comes in the width – a trench trenched below a scattered tree line. A red box appears with a cross, lock on the position. The drone slows down, and it settles on landing. Read the screen, “seconds for landing: 3, 2, 1”, then: “a bomb dropped”.
The bomb rotates a little with its fall, reduces the landscape below, then fills an orange -screen fiery ball. Men hardly interact.
Once the drone returns, they start preparing for the next launch. Tomorrow will be the same – more drone launch, and another long day he spends staring on the screens and returns to the effect. Work is endless, but here at the forefront, no one expects it to be otherwise. There is no significant conclusion, no moment from the end, as long as I managed to survive. Only the next task, the next drone flight, and the war that lasts.