Ukraine resists the new Russian offensive also in Bilohorivka, but the situation is critical

“I have just returned from a more advanced position, and it is still holding out,” the legionnaire continues. However, images of the latest wave of attacks that occurred this week on Bilohorivka suggest that can fall at any time: in the videos that circulate on the networks, you can see dozens of simultaneous artillery explosions –especially from GRAD and MLRS–, sparkling in every corner of the little that remains standing of this city.

This enclave, belonging to the province of Lugansk, has been in contention since the beginning of the war. But, to date, Putin had crashed here again and again without managing to take the city by storm. The difference now is that, since last May 10, we are witnessing a new very different Russian offensive: The Kremlin is applying the “scorched earth” tactic, reducing everything to rubble and ashes with its artillery, before launching the infantry to occupy Ukrainian soil.

He has done it in the northeast of Kharkov –where they had to evacuate 16,000 civilians in just over a weekwho lived in cities near the border with Russia – and is doing so now on this Lyman-Kupyansk front, where the situation has become enormously tense in recent days.

“Our work now is even more important, because we do we can see the enemy and what he does“continues Sicilia, insisting on the importance of drones in the midst of the Russian offensive. Their team – which is made up of volunteer fighters from Italy, Finland and the United States – allows the Ukrainian Army to have eyes in the sky, to know how and when to move .

Total destruction

After the agonizing fall of Bakhmut – in May 2023 – the president Volodymyr Zelensky He gave an epic speech to announce to Ukrainians that the absolute destruction Russia was wreaking in some places could not be fixed later. “Bakhmut only exists in our hearts”he asserted.

Since then, more cities have joined that list of places where life once lived, and never will again. Places like Avdiivka either Chasiv Yar have been the prelude to what is happening today in several dozen towns in Kharkovor in Bilohorvkawhere the artillery has not let up for days and there is no longer a single healthy building left.

“More boys die from artillery than from rifles”, Sicilia explained days before, while walking between some of those bombed buildings. Together with his companion Koli, he reconnoitered a possible observation point on the outskirts of Bilohorivka.

To enter the building – which had been a school before the war – you had to pass through debris of all kinds: beams that had fallen from the ceiling, doors torn off by the explosions and broken glass everywhere. The legionnaires led the reconnaissance to ensure that there were no explosive remains. “We have come to find butterfly minesamong other things, inside the sites,” they justified.

In one of the rooms, a dozen cribs were crushed by pieces that had fallen from the ceiling; In what had once been the library, books were scattered on the floor and several shelves lay overturned. The building was to be demolished – like all those around it –; but for the Sicilian and Koli drone team it was a great find. “The windows are oriented towards the area that interests us”they stressed.

These reconnaissance teams they work 24 hours a day, in turns, to ensure that there are always “Ukrainian eyes” watching from above. In each turn, they can unload more than 20 drone batteries, providing support to the Ukrainian artillery, to which they provide the coordinates of the best Russian targets in real time.

Drones in exchange for lives

“Today we have the added problem of explosive drones, with which the Russians attack usthat’s why we also carry out reconnaissance patrols with unmanned vehicles, and this way we don’t risk lives,” Sicilia continues.

[“Debemos resistir hasta la primavera y luego será nuestro turno”: Ucrania ya planea su contraofensiva]

But it is not always feasible. They use very basic drones, which Russian electronic countermeasures manage to interfere with very often. “We are not as well equipped as the 3rd Assault Brigade or the 12th Azov Brigade, so We take good drones to the most relevant positionsand we do the rest of the missions with worse ones,” he laments, referring to the equipment that the International Legion receives. “To compensate, we do a lot of DIY to tune the drones and improve them,” he adds.

Each reconnaissance patrol that the Ukrainian Armed Forces carry out with drones means that it is not necessary to put a squad of men on the ground that – in places like Bilohorivka – they would have to face a constant barrage of artillery with little chance of survival.

The use of drones in this war is –probably– the greatest war innovation so far this century. And it continues to evolve, month after month, with new ways of using unmanned vehicles, with new models of devices and with new adaptations. The problem is that, at this point in the war, Russia is ahead in the use of drones.

The Kremlin, in addition to having a fleet of reconnaissance vehicles larger than that of Ukraine, has multiplied the use of explosive drones in a very worrying way. On fronts such as Bilohorivka or Chasiv Yar, these explosive drones already cause more casualties than the artillery itself.

“But Russia is not capable of modern missions“, which are based on reconnaissance plus air force, and that is why we see tactics in the style of the Second World War, although drones are used,” says Sicilia, who has a degree in History and constantly highlights similarities between the Ukrainian war and other conflicts in the twentieth century.

Towards World War III

However, the legionnaire openly recognizes that the experience gained by NATO in the wars of the last century is not enough to gain a military advantage in this one. “Most of us here – in the International Legion – we have NATO training, and we could do more complicated things. But having experience in an army of a NATO country is no guarantee of anything either: I have seen guys from the US Special Forces break their contract after two missions, claiming that since we don’t have a support air force here it is too risky or difficult,” relates.

“That’s why Sometimes it’s easier to train inexperienced kids., who do not have such a square mind as to what the tactics and protocols should be,” he adds. “The only thing that works against us in training new recruits specifically for this war is lack of time,” she says.

“The war is going to become even more active, we are heading towards a great Russian offensive, and the best thing Ukraine can do is adopt the best possible defense strategy. “This is not the time to think about counteroffensives,” says the legionnaire, who has spent more than a year fighting in the Ukrainian ranks. He also warns that in that time the conflict has changed a lot, and is now at a critical point.

“The great failure of Ukraine, from my personal point of view, was stop the 2022 counteroffensive in Kharkiv, and not continue towards Zaporizhia. If we had not stopped, part of the south of the country could have been liberated,” he emphasizes. “But there were too many commanders with a Soviet mentality,” she adds.

“With Syrsky in command of the Armed Forces, I have noticed two changes: more bureaucracy and paperwork to order drones and ammunition; and now the orders are not to shoot first, and only return fire,” says the Italian. “But I will continue fighting here because the possibility of World War III is real. “This war is only 2,400 kilometers from home, how can I not do anything,” he says while reviewing the recordings of his reconnaissance drones over the smoking Bilohorivka.