Deep into one recent night, at a Ukrainian mobile drone command point hidden amid the fields and forests close to the border with Russia, the largest of six screens flashed with images of the wiggling course of the River Seym, deep inside Russia on the other side of the border. Straddling the river, a thin band was visible, rendered in white by the night vision imaging: a pontoon bridge.
Inside the command point, Anna, Pavlo and Ivan watched the display intently. “Move in closer,” murmured Ivan, the team’s 48-year-old commander. Pavlo pushed a button and the camera zoomed in. “Yesterday, we destroyed this crossing, but they’ve repaired it again, probably in the last few hours,” he said, picking up his phone to send the information to an encrypted group chat of Ukrainian commanders in the area.
