Young Ukrainians risking their lives building deadly kamikaze drones to hunt down and kill Russian soldiers

Published

1 year ago

April 1, 2023

admin

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.

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.

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.

Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts

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.

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.

“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 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.

“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.

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.

World

Mother of Australian brothers killed on Mexico surfing trip says world ‘a darker place’

Published

3 hours ago

May 8, 2024

admin

Mother of Australian brothers killed on Mexico surfing trip says world 'a darker place'

The mother of two Australian surfers allegedly shot dead by thieves in Mexico says “the world has become a darker place for us” after their deaths.

The bodies of brothers Callum and Jake Robinson and American Jack Carter Rhoad were found south of Ensenada in northern Mexico last week, after the men went missing on the weekend of 27 April.

The trio, who were on a surfing trip near the city, were shot dead by thieves who wanted their truck’s tyres, according to prosecutors, and their bodies dumped in a remote 15m-deep (50ft) well.

Debra Robinson delivered a tribute to her sons at a beach in San Diego on Tuesday.

“Our hearts are broken and the world has become a darker place for us,” she said. “They were young men enjoying their passion of surfing together.

“Jake’s passion was surfing, and it was no coincidence that many of the hospitals that he worked in were close to surfing beaches.”

“Live bigger, shine brighter, and love harder in their memory,” she said, and thanked Australian officials and supporters there and in the United States.

Mrs Robinson, who also paid tribute to Jack Carter Rhoad, said her sons’ bodies, or their ashes, will eventually be taken back to Australia.

“Now it’s time to bring them home to families and friends,” she said. “And the ocean waits in Australia.”

Prosecutors have identified three people as potential suspects, two of whom were caught with methamphetamines. One of them, a woman, had one of the victims’ mobile phones when she was caught, they said.

Prosecutors said the two were being held pending drug charges but continue to be suspects in the killings.

A third man was arrested on charges of a crime equivalent to kidnapping, but that was before the bodies were found. It was unclear when or if he might face more charges.

The third man was believed to have directly participated in the killings, prosecutors said.

33-year-old Callum, Jake, 30, and their friend Jack, also 30, had posted photos on social media of isolated beaches shortly before they went missing.

Callum had reportedly been living in the US to try to become a professional lacrosse player, while Jake, a doctor, had flown out to visit him two weeks ago.

Thieves likely saw their truck and tents and wanted their tyres but the men probably resisted, said prosecutor Maria Elena Andrade Ramírez.

She said the bodies were taken to “a site that is extremely hard to get to” in Baja California state.

The well, near where their truck and tent were found, also contained a fourth body that had been there much longer, she added.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday he had requested an opportunity to speak to Mrs Robinson and her husband Martin.

“This is a terrible tragedy and my heart goes out to them,” Mr Albanese said.

World

Trump trial: This was Donald with his trousers down – no doubt

Published

3 hours ago

May 8, 2024

admin

Trump trial: This was Donald with his trousers down - no doubt

There are moments, more than others, that scream the humiliation of it all.

Take this, before Tuesday’s proceedings got underway. “No descriptions of genitalia or anything but it’s important to elicit that she had sex with him.”

It was the prosecution’s assurance prior to questioning Stormy Daniels after Donald Trump’s lawyers had objected, in advance, to her testifying to the details of sexual acts.

It would be that kind of day in this kind of trial.

Trump trial as it happened: Stormy Daniels accused of car park ‘threat’ lie

In a dingy New York courtroom, this was the president and the porn star, together again, in a reunion most reductive for Mr Trump.

He might have secured guarantees on anatomical detail but, from the moment the court heard “The People call Stormy Daniels” this was Mr Trump with his trousers down, no doubt.

Ms Daniels told her story, of growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the daughter of a single mother. She edited her high school newspaper, enjoyed ballet dancing and horses and had ambitions to be a technician.

By the time she met Mr Trump, aged 27, we learned she was an adult film actress and director, star of the likes of 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up.

By her telling, the Trump encounter was more Austin Powers – the penthouse suite, the satin pyjamas and the spanking with a rolled-up magazine.

“Bullshit,” Mr Trump was heard to mutter. His problem is that this kind of bullshit sticks.

Whatever his lawyers’ protestations about Ms Daniels’ credibility – and there are holes – that’s hardly the headline for a watching, voting, public.

What will they take from court to the polling booth in November? Quite apart from the imagery, what message does it send to key demographics?

An affair with a porn star, whilst married, is a poor fit with the principles of evangelicals, so critical to the Trump vote in 2016. Suburban women might also reel from this tawdry peek backstage at the presidency.

How much will Mr Trump worry? About $130,000 (£103,000) worth. It is the premium he paid to stop the story coming out in the first place.

Sadly, for him, the insurance policy has run out.

World

Istanbul Airport: Boeing cargo plane drags across runway sending sparks flying

Published

3 hours ago

May 8, 2024

admin

Istanbul Airport: Boeing cargo plane drags across runway sending sparks flying

A Boeing cargo plane has landed at Istanbul Airport without its front landing gear, sending sparks flying along the runway.

Social media footage on Wednesday showed the Boeing 767 belonging to FedEx Express using only its back landing gear to land, eventually dipping its nose onto the runway.

The video shows sparks coming off the runway as the plane drags across it.

The plane was on the last leg of its flight from Paris to Istanbul when its pilots informed the traffic control tower at Istanbul Airport that its landing gear failed to open, Turkey’s transport ministry said.

The pilots landed the plane with guidance from the tower, the ministry said in a statement, adding the communications meant airport rescue and firefighting teams could make necessary preparations on the runway before landing.

Footage shows responders on the ground spraying water on the tarmac and at the plane within 20 seconds of it coming to a standstill.

No one was injured and the crew safely evacuated the aircraft, said Abdulkadir Uraloglu, Turkey’s transportation and infrastructure minister.

The runway where the plane landed remained closed off to other traffic while the aircraft was removed, he added.

A spokesperson from FedEx said: “FedEx Express Flight 6268, a Boeing 767, was en route from Paris, France to Istanbul, Turkey when it experienced an issue during landing Wednesday morning.

“There were no reported injuries to our crew members. We are coordinating with investigation authorities and will provide additional information as it is available.”

Sky News have contacted Boeing for comment.

Boeing decided to overhaul its management this year amid mounting pressure from airlines, regulators and investors as it grapples with a growing crisis following a mid-air panel blowout on a 737 MAX plane in January.

A fresh investigation has also been opened into the Boeing 787 Dreamliner – after the firm said several employees had committed “misconduct” by falsely claiming tests had been completed.