Opinion | Ukraine’s Stealthy Drone Warriors

Southeastern Ukraine

The scene resembles the Ukrainian flag: yellow fields of corn, sunflowers and wheat, a crisp blue September sky. We park on the perimeter of a field, in the shade of a row of lindens. “These trees are quite inhabited,” says my guide—call sign Leon—a soldier in a brigade of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces known as Magyar’s Birds. Under the dense foliage, soldiers on the ground work in what looks like a pumpkin patch. Instead of tending squash, they are rigging 12 fixed-wing drones with 22 pounds of explosives. “Agriculture in Ukraine,” Leon says with a smile.

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