Young Ukrainians risking their lives building deadly kamikaze drones to hunt down and kill Russian soldiers
We’re racing across town in battle-torn eastern Ukraine, trying to keep up with a battered BMW driven by an 18-year-old with his 21-year-old mate urging him on; but they aren’t joyriding youngsters. They’re soldiers in the military and part of a special unit, and they’re taking us to their headquarters.
We had met an hour or so earlier when we pulled up outside another small house they operate from, long since abandoned by its owners after a year of continuous shelling from the Russian forces.
It’s the same across much of the Donbas – the civilians have moved out and the army has moved in.
We can’t film outside as their location is secret, but we’re led into a gloomy corridor and through a curtain.
Ukraine war – latest: Threat of world war not an ‘exaggeration’
Inside two boys are working, one with a soldering iron and another tapping furiously on a computer, data and codes scrolling up the screen.
Beside them, an AK-47 has been leaned against the wall.
In a glass-fronted cabinet are rows of sealed plastic tubes, next to the stacks of batteries and covering an entire shelf, piles of neatly stacked drones – the type you’d buy in a high street shop.
This secret base is home to the 93rd brigade’s kamikaze drone team, known as the Seneca unit.
A kamikaze drone exploding
Their job is quite simple, but the danger is acute.
The team stationed here take donated drones, reprogramme them so they can’t be detected in flight, attach explosives to them using cable ties, go to within one or two kilometres of the frontline in Bakhmut, and using virtual reality goggles, fly the drone into the Russian lines.
It’s crazy – but it works.
Anna is the commander of this group of four. “I’m just a very little commander,” she tells me.
Anna, 23, says she may have children once the war is over
She’s just 23 but she looks younger. She is an expert at logistics and has been put in charge of the three boys.
I ask her what her family thinks of her being here.
“They worry. But they can’t say anything because I am an adult, and they may agree or disagree, but they do agree to help us,” she says.
She tells me her mum and dad send them care packages and collect donations for them to buy more equipment.
Anna reveals she got married during the war, and so I ask her where her husband is.
“He’s just outside,” she says, laughing. He is also serving.
“We are fighting for our land, for our history, for our culture. We are fighting for our freedom, serenity and fighting for our people. Russia has stolen everything that is Ukrainian, is Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian history, unfortunately,” she says.
Anna hopes that when this war ends, it will be the end of conflict with Russia for good.
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She tells me when it’s over, she has plans for a new life.
“I’m keen on CrossFit, maybe after this, or maybe something else with sport, or maybe I’ll have some children, I don’t know…”
With the call sign “Miami”, one of the operators is just 18. He’s from here in the Donbas, and his father is fighting as well.
‘Miami’, 18, was nine years old when Russia first invaded in 2014
To them, the Bakhmut battle is an attack on their actual home.
“Miami” was just nine years old when Russia first invaded in 2014, and he says although it’s sort of been normal for him to live through the conflict in the Donbas, he didn’t expect to see full-scale war on these streets.
“It feels very strange maybe because not many time ago I walked on the streets, walked in this place. It’s not just about Konstantinovka, Chasiv Yar, Novodmytrivka, Bakhmut. It’s very strange to see this place at war.”
Mark, 21, says he joined up a few months after the Russian invasion started last year. He says he’s learnt the art of making and priming the kamikaze drones on the job.
He motions for me to sit down and shows me in detail how he sets the explosives up. He attaches wires, tiny batteries, and a simple triggering device that blinks a red light, before turning solid, signalling the charge is set.
Mark, 21, joined the military not long after the Russian invasion
“It’s like Hollywood,” he tells me, laughing.
Holding the tube, he slowly moves it in the air, simulating it is flying, and then smashes it into the wall.
I jump.
It may not be armed but it’s still a tube of high explosives and fragments.
He, just like the others watching on as we chat, says they have no choice but to fight even if it’s a bit scary.
“You have the explosions in your hands, just like this blinking LED, and you know, this can just like boom in your hands and just like that, it sends you to the grave,” he tells me.
“But I’m happy, it’s like absurdity of our life because it’s scary, and everyone who tells you that it’s not scary, it’s like b******t.
“It’s scary, it’s scary to attach the bomb, scary to just, like, land and just like do all these things. But you know your motivation, you know what’s behind you is just like a nightmare.”
The young people say they have no choice but to fight
The dedication, determination and complete absence of fear are all the more disturbing to me because I can’t help but think that they’re mainly younger than my own children, yet every day they risk their lives to kill Russian soldiers.
At their headquarters, a young woman in her early 20s with dyed-blue hair stares intently at her computer.
Above her and on three walls are large monitors with a mosaic of screens.
They are live drone feeds of the Bakhmut battlefield. They pass real-time information to the soldiers fighting on the ground. They can see the Russian soldiers and they can warn the Ukrainian units of their movements.
We can’t film the feeds because of operational security, but one of the soldiers, Artem, shows me what is happening – and explains Russia’s tactics as we watch.
A tech soldier – also part of the kamikaze drone team
“The main purpose now is to make sure that we can hold the city, and we won’t give up our flanks because Russians are trying to come around, you see here?” he says, pointing at the screen.
“They are trying to breach us everywhere, like their tactics right now is to constantly attack from every direction.”
When artillery or mortars can’t be used because of the danger of friendly fire they call up Anna’s team and send them to the front to carry out a focused hit.
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Sky’s Stuart Ramsay with Artem
This is a full-on military unit involved in a deadly war, yet one can’t forget their age.
While we filmed, I could smell a bag of popcorn heating up in the microwave. Like any youngster anywhere in the world perhaps, they like munching on popcorn while working away.
It really is heartbreaking to me.
This generation is now at war and shouldn’t be, but then again, everyone in Ukraine is now.
Stuart Ramsay reports from eastern Ukraine with camera operator Toby Nash, and producers Dominique Van Heerden, Artem Lysak, and Nick Davenport.
It has been an extraordinary few hours which may well set the tone for a hugely consequential week ahead.
In the time that it took me to fly from London to Saudi Arabia, where President Donald Trump will begin a pivotal Middle East tour this week, a flurry of news has emerged on a range of key global challenges.
• On the Gaza war: The Trump administration has confirmed it’s holding talks with Hamas, which says it will release a hostage amid renewed hopes of a ceasefire.
• On the Ukraine war: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is prepared to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Istanbul – this announcement came minutes after Trump urged Zelenskyy to agree to the meeting.
• On the China-US trade war: The White House says the two countries have agreed to a “trade deal”. China said the talks, in Geneva, were “candid, in-depth and constructive”.
All three of these developments represent dramatic shifts in three separate challenges and hint at the remarkable influence the US president is having globally.
This sets the ground for what could be a truly consequential week for Trump’s presidency and his ability to effect change.
With his unique style, Trump is seeking to align numerous stars as he embarks on his first foreign diplomatic trip of his second presidency.
For days, it’s been unclear how the week ahead would unfold and which global challenge would be dominant.
The Saudi government has been instrumental as a broker in the Ukraine-Russia conflict and Qatar has been a mediator in the Gaza war.
Trump will visit both countries this week.
President Donald Trump on Air Force One earlier this month. File pic: AP
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Putin under pressure?
On Ukraine, Putin held a late-night news conference at the Kremlin on Saturday at which he made the surprise proposal of talks with Zelenskyy in Istanbul this Thursday.
But he rejected European and US calls for an immediate ceasefire.
The move was widely interpreted as a delay tactic.
Trump then issued a social media post urging Zelenskyy to accept the Russian proposal; effectively to call Putin’s bluff.
The American president wrote: “President Putin of Russia doesn’t want to have a Cease Fire Agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY. At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the U.S., will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly! I’m starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin, who’s too busy celebrating the Victory of World War ll, which could not have been won (not even close!) without the United States of America. HAVE THE MEETING, NOW!!!”
Within minutes, Zelenskyy responded, agreeing to the talks.
“We await a full and lasting ceasefire, starting from tomorrow, to provide the necessary basis for diplomacy. There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will be waiting for Putin in Türkiye on Thursday. Personally. I hope that this time the Russians will not look for excuses,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
The prospect of Putin and Zelenskyy together in Istanbul on Thursday is remarkable.
It raises the possibility that Trump would want to be there too.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomes other world leaders to Kyiv. Pic: Presidential Office of Ukraine/dpa/AP Images
Israel’s war in Gaza
On Gaza, it’s been announced that US envoy Steve Witkoff will arrive in Israel on Monday to finalise details for the release of Idan Alexander, an Israeli-American hostage being held by Hamas.
The development comes after it was confirmed that Mr Witkoff has been holding discussions with Israel, Qatar and Egypt and, through them, with Hamas.
The talks focused on a possible Gaza hostage deal and larger peace discussions for a ceasefire.
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Gaza after around a year and a half of Israeli attacks. Pic: Reuters/Mahmoud Issa
Just days ago, Israel announced a new military plan to move back into Gaza.
When do candid talks become a trade deal?
Meanwhile, officials from the United States and China have been holding talks in Geneva, Switzerland, to resolve their trade war, which was instigated by Trump’s tariffs against China.
Late on Sunday evening, the White House released a statement claiming that a trade deal had been struck.
In a written statement, titled “U.S. Announces China Trade Deal in Geneva”, treasury secretary Scott Bessent said: “I’m happy to report that we made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks… We will be giving details tomorrow, but I can tell you that the talks were productive. We had the vice premier, two vice ministers, who were integrally involved, Ambassador Jamieson, and myself. And I spoke to President Trump, as did Ambassador Jamieson, last night, and he is fully informed of what is going on. So, there will be a complete briefing tomorrow morning.”
Beijing Global Times newspaper quoted the Chinese vice premier as saying that the talks were candid, in-depth and constructive.
However, the Chinese fell short of calling it a trade deal.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
A Qatari gift
In a separate development, US media reports say that Qatar is preparing to gift Trump a Boeing 747 from its royal fleet, which he would use as a replacement for the existing and aging Air Force One plane.
The Qatari government says no deal has been finalised, but the development is already causing controversy because of the optics of accepting gifts of this value.
Of all the fronts in Donald Trump’s trade war, none was as dramatic and economically threatening as the sky-high tariffs he imposed on China.
There are a couple of reasons: first, because China is and was the single biggest importer of goods into the US and, second, because of the sheer height of the tariffs imposed by the White House in recent months.
In short, tariffs of over 100% were tantamount to a total embargo on goods coming from the United States’ main trading partner. That would have had enormous economic implications, not just for the US but every other country around the world (these are the world’s biggest and second-biggest economies, after all).
Trump latest: US and China slash tariffs in trade war de-escalation
So the truce announced on Monday by treasury secretary Scott Bessent is undoubtedly a very big deal indeed.
In short, China will still face an extra 30% tariffs (the 20% levies cast as punishment for China’s involvement in fentanyl imports and the 10% “floor” set on “Liberation Day”) on top of the residual 10% average from the Biden era.
But the rest of the extra tariffs will be paused for 90 days. China, in turn, has suspended its own retaliatory tariffs on the US.
The market has responded as you would probably have expected, with share prices leaping in relief. But that raises a question: is the trade war now over? Now that the two sides have blinked, can globalisation continue more or less as it had before?
That, it turns out, is a trickier and more complex question than it might first seem.
Pic: AP
For one thing, even if one were to assume this is a permanent truce rather than a suspended one, it still leaves tariffs considerably higher than they were only last year. And China faces tariffs far higher than most other countries (tot up the existing ones and the Trump era ones and China faces average tariffs of around 40%, while the average for most countries is between 8% and 14%, according to Capital Economics).
In other words, the US is still implementing an economic policy designed to increase the cost of doing business with China, even if it no longer attempts to prevent it altogether. The fact that last week’s trade agreement with the UK contains clauses seemingly designed to encourage it to raise trade barriers against China for reasons of “security” only reinforces this suspicion. The trade war is still simmering, even if it’s no longer as hot as it was a few days ago.
Read more:
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And more broadly, the deeper impact of the trade rollercoaster in recent months is unlikely to disappear altogether. Companies remain more nervous about investing in factories and expansions in the face of such deep economic instability. No-one is entirely sure the White House won’t just U-turn once again.
That being said, it’s hard not to escape the conclusion that the US president has blinked in this trade war. In the face of a potential recession, he has pulled back from the scariest and most damaging of his tariffs, earlier and to a greater extent than many had expected.
World
Zelenskyy’s offer to meet Putin raises the stakes in this already high-stakes game of diplomacy
Diplomacy over Ukraine has become even more of a game of high-stakes poker.
In the early hours of Sunday, Vladimir Putin played his hand, rejecting demands for a ceasefire and proposing direct talks in Istanbul instead.
Read more:
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Ukraine ‘ready to meet’ Russia after Putin calls for peace talks
That was in response to the opening gambit made on Saturday by Ukraine and its European allies.
Sir Keir Starmer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Emmanuel Macron among world leaders in Kyiv. Pic: AP
Britain’s Sir Keir Starmer said they were “calling Putin out”, that if he was really serious about peace, he should agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire starting on Monday.
And they thought they had Donald Trump’s backing until he made his move.
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Kremlin: ‘We don’t share Starmer’s view’
Late Sunday, he drove a cart and horses through claims of western unity, coming down on Putin’s side.
Ukraine, he said, should submit to the Russian leader’s suggestion of talks.
“Ukraine should agree to this – immediately”, he posted. Then: “I’m starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin…”
So much for the Coalition of the Willing having Putin where they wanted him.
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Are Putin’s call for peace talks genuine?
Trump let him off the hook.
All eyes were then on President Zelenskyy, who has now in turn dramatically raised the stakes.
He will go to Istanbul, he said, and wait there for Vladimir Putin.
Over to you, Vladimir.
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The fast-paced diplomacy aside, the last twenty-four hours have brought Europe closer to a moment of truth.
They thought they had Donald Trump’s support, and yet even with 30 nations demanding an unconditional ceasefire, the US president seemed, in the end, to side with the Russian leader.
He has helped Putin get out of a hole.
Yet again, Trump could not be counted on to pressure Vladimir Putin to end this war.
If America is no longer a reliable partner over Ukraine, Europe may need to go it alone, whatever the cost.
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