Despite gradual progress, drone operators remain resolute about their critical role in counterattack
Gennadiy may be wounded in hospital, but he has still found a way to participate in Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive. Sitting on a crowded ward at a medical facility in Dnipro, the commander unexpectedly pulls out his mobile to reveal live footage of green fields and tree lines in a newly contested part of the front.
Although he was hurt in an artillery strike overnight between 2 and 3 June, as Ukraine’s attacks on the southern Zaporizhzhia front stepped up, Gennadiy, 51, says that when required he watches the phone screen to help soldiers on the ground. “I’m still working, still correcting artillery fire,” he says. “This is not just so I can watch.”
