This one-off documentary is brought to you by the production company that made Europe from Above, Hidden Britain by Drone, and The Emirates from Above. It specialises in using aerial photography to find new perspectives, in other words – but Ukraine from Above: Secrets from the Frontline (Channel 4) is not like the others.
Almost a year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, pictures taken from the air illustrate a story of destruction on a hideous scale. Before and after photographs show Ukrainian apartment blocks that used to teem with happy everyday life, now with every window blown out; previously magnificent theatres with craters in the roof; and pictures of whole cities which, when overlaid on a map, show the systematic razing of civilian buildings such as schools and health centres. Modern drone technology enables those images to be taken closeup, a development that has turned this theatre of war into a heavily surveilled crucible where atrocities are hard to conceal. When the Russians massacred surrendering civilians on the road out of Kyiv, a drone was in the air above them, clearly filming a man with his hands raised being shot dead.
