‘Skif’, the head of the unit that manufactures mines and explosives for the 23RD Brigade. Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, April 8, 2025. Three houses without pretensions, among many others in the great villages of the Ukrainian countryside, sit down a short distance from the front of Zaporizhzhia in the south. However, they hide the heart of kyiv’s defense strategy against what President Volodyyr Zelensky suspects that it is a double Kremlin game: the use of continuous conversations to prepare a new massive attack against Ukraine.
Beyond the range of Russian drones and close enough to quickly supply Ukrainian forces, these houses organize secret workshops where mines and explosives are assembled for the 23RD Mechanized brigade, together with drones destined to transport them. The objective: stop, or at least reduce speed, the growing number of Russian offensives.
Its inhabitants, often elderly, have left these dangerous areas, delivering their homes to men under the command of Oleksandr, known as “Saha” (does not give their last name for security reasons), 32, promoted in the summer of 2024 to head this unit of 120 soldiers, including drones drones, specialists in explosives and specialists in specialists. “We are the epicenter of the ongoing strategy: drone mining,” he said in a monotonous voice. “Our army seeks to drastically increase the number of these units. From the beginning of the conversations, the Russians have incessate their attacks in our sector ten times. They are testing our weakest points to break my lines.”
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