Opinion | Ukrainian battlefield commander to Biden: Please untie our hands

by Lobin

4 comments
  1. FULL TEXT

    *Yuriy Fedorenko is commander of the Achilles drone unit in the 92nd Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.*

    What haunts me at night is thinking about the people of Vovchansk in the north of the Kharkiv region. We were not able to protect them. Russian forces entered the city, executing Ukrainian civilians and unleashing the same slaughter we witnessed in Bucha. From our drones, we saw the bodies of elderly women who were unable to escape lying dead in the street.

    It wasn’t that we weren’t capable of stopping the invading soldiers. We weren’t allowed to.

    Let me explain.

    When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, I left my job as a member of the Kyiv City Council and volunteered to defend the sovereignty of Ukraine. For the past two years, I have been commanding the elite Achilles drone unit of the 92nd Brigade.

    Achilles is made up of volunteers who initially joined as civilians, became infantrymen in combat and later mastered the ability to operate unmanned aerial vehicles. It has some of the best drone pilots in Ukraine, including our legend “Darwin,” a one-time gamer turned tank killer. We helped push the Russians back from Kyiv, liberated the Kharkiv region, and held the front line around the blasted hellscape of Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar on the eastern front for a year.

    Drones have become integral to the defense of Ukraine, and the work Achilles does is critical. We have reconnaissance drones that identify attacking positions and soldiers, mapping out the battlefield. We have first-person-view (FPV), or self-detonating, drones that serve as clever and cheaper substitutes for short-range artillery such as mortars. We have longer range drones that can drop larger munitions on targets and even operate at night.

    For every Ukrainian FPV drone, Russians seem to have at least three. For every Ukrainian reconnaissance drone, the numbers are even more lopsided. Electronically jamming their drones is crucial to protecting our soldiers and cities.

    But our enemy has also become very adept at jamming.

  2. This is not the Biden I knew from the past.
    What did they do to Dark Brandon?

  3. It’s insanity at this point that we don’t allow Ukraine to fight back adequately

  4. Amazing post. Where is this published. Has it been sent to US Congress and POTUS? Americans need to read this. News channels never even mention Ukraine anymore….

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