Cruising high above dense Ukrainian forest, the combat drone spotted the long Russian column winding down the road from the Belarusian border. Its pilot, operating from afar, used the on-board cameras to scan the treeline for signs of anti-aircraft defences, then selected his target.
The bombs struck the spine of the column and one after another the fuel tankers erupted in a chain reaction of fireballs that illuminated his screen. “I think this was my greatest achievement,” the pilot, with the call sign Odesa, told The Times. “It stopped the offensive in the Chernihiv and Kyiv directions because the enemy had equipment but no fuel.”
The Times and The Sunday Times have teams of journalists on the ground in Ukraine and Russia, sending breaking