re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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think Vietnam we could have won but chose to leave with our tail between our legs for political reasons

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Anyone on here know how long the probing attacks are likely to go on before they launch the real offensive attack?

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I’m betting you think the Tet Offensive was the “turning point” where after that the war was “unwinnable” for the US.

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My wife's grandfather was a Captain in the Marines and served looking at aerial recon photos. I don't think that he got closer to the action than Ulithi or similar. She has a photo somewhere of him with a big wide grin and grass skirt bare chested native women on either side.

An uncle served in New Guinea and elsewhere in the Army as a his unit's machine gunner. He had lots of souvenirs including a several foot long string of Japanese gold teeth. The only thing that pissed him off about WWII was that black soldiers told Aussie women that they were American Indians, so they could get a piece. Nice improvising I think.

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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.”

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Gennadiy (Ukraine’s military allows only first names or call signs to be used) and other soldiers the Guardian spoke to paint a slightly different picture of a gradual buildup. “A month ago we started to increase the intensity of our attacks,” he says, describing operations where he was based with the 114th brigade around Novodarivka, a village on the southern front declared liberated by Ukraine on 4 June.

Progress has been measured, acknowledges the wounded veteran, saying it took 10 days for Ukrainian soldiers to capture Russian trenches in the next tree line. “Why did it take so long to take that one position? We wanted to minimise our losses,” he says, showing me the location in question by switching to the Deep State mapping app, used to track developments in the frontline.

His comments may help explain some of the wider reality. Over the past fortnight, Ukrainian units and leaders have announced the capture of a handful of largely deserted villages, with the gains amounting to four miles (6.5km) at the furthest point, south of Velyka Novosilka. The open fields of Novodarivka are nearby, about eight to 10 miles (13 to 16km) to the west, while a small bulge of Russian forces is positioned in between.

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The hospital in Dnipro is one of many places deep behind the lines where the wounded, once stabilised, come for further surgery if needed and rehabilitation. Like in many Ukrainian hospitals, conditions are cramped at the best of times, but local sources say the facility has been filling up with wounded soldiers over the past fortnight as the counteroffensive has begun.

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From a distance, the war in Ukraine can easily be portrayed as a battle that will hinge on the provision and use of western tanks, rockets and other equipment. But on the front, as significant are other locally developed weapons – most notably the new $400 (£312) or $500 drones being used not for surveillance but in attack.

Four drone operators, led by Shved, whose call sign means “the Swede” on account of his blond hair, promise to take the Guardian to a base five miles (8km) from the Zaporizhzhia front, though at the last minute it is decided the trip is too dangerous because Russian reconnaissance drones were spotted over their dugouts. Instead, he meets the Guardian in a nearby village, a similar distance from the zero line, with outgoing artillery audible in the distance.

The squad are from Ukraine’s 1st brigade, a mechanised force using Czech-modernised, Soviet-standard T-64 tanks, and the drone operators’ job, in part, will be to act in tandem with the armour “as their eyes” when they are deployed to attack.

But the surprise, given the importance attached to drones by Ukraine’s military, is that the soldiers themselves have to fund the effort because the army cannot afford them.

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“We pay up to 70% of our salaries to buy drones,” said Shved, particularly citing the new “first-person view” attack drones.

“That’s why you use these drones like a bomber, not kamikaze, because you don’t have the money to keep replacing them,” said another crew member, Spielberg, so nicknamed when the other soldiers learned he had video-editing skills.

Later at a drone command point about 30 miles (48km) away from the frontline, the squad demonstrate a modified fast-flying $400 Ukrainian-made Aquila, piloted with a controller and goggles. Some of the extra parts, such as the bomb release, are made using a 3D printer, the ink for which was also paid for by the troops themselves. The Aquila can carry one or two grenades and flies at 100kph (62mph) to evade the enemy. The soldiers say it can fly about 3km (1.9 miles) into Russian-held territory and believe it could be a cost-effective alternative to often inaccurate artillery fire.

Drones like this will be a critical part of the fight to come – and here there is nothing the west can teach the Ukrainians, because such drones represent an innovation. “It’s 21st-century warfare,” says another team member, Doshch. And although some of the overwatch can be conducted remotely in bunkers, most of the drone teams (typically four-strong, they say) have to work about 1km behind the front.

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It is their job to be optimistic, given what is at stake. But they also know they are in danger. “We are drone operators, we are target number one, high priority for the Russians. So as soon as we are detected, they will shoot everything into our location,” says Shved, arguing near-misses are not uncommon.

“I have no doubt we will defeat them,” adds Spielberg, “but I don’t know if I can survive until that time.”

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