The Darth Vader theme tune suddenly bleeps from the underbelly of a Ukrainian drone as a marine attaches a mortar round to it before launching the aircraft against a Russian position.
The Ukrainians say their enemy fears this kind of rotary drone in particular because of the size of the bombs it can drop.
Unmanned aircraft used by both sides have transformed the battlefield in the nearly three years since Russia launched its full-scale war.
But another transformation is also looming as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House.
Offering a sense of the mood on the ground, several Ukrainian troops told Sky News they were strongly against any kind of brokered deal that gifts land to Moscow.
“I hope the outcome of this war will be just,” said Major Vladyslav Tovstii, 28, commander of the Korsar battalion, 38th Separate Marine Brigade, speaking at a drone command centre in eastern Ukrainewhere his marines call in and track strikes on Russian targets.
“For me, a just peace is the return of our territory. That’s the only understanding I have; there’s no other way.”
Image: ‘A just peace is the return of our territory,’ Major Vladyslav Tovstii said
Battle-hardened despite his young age, Vladyslav has been fighting since before Russia launched its all-out invasion on 24 February 2022.
Standing in front of a wall of screens, showing video feeds from surveillance aircraft and attack drones, the commander gave his view on the possibility of some sort of compromise deal with Vladimir Putin – something that Mr Trump may well attempt to achieve.
“It would mean that justice in the world is not as I see it,” Major Tovstii said.
“A compromise is no longer about justice; it’s about concessions, which means that if you are stronger, you can take what you want.”
His brigade is among the units attempting to stop a grinding Russian advance towards the frontline city of Pokrovsk.
The use of drones is a key way for Ukraine to compensate for a lack of manpower compared to the number of soldiers Russia is sacrificing daily for every inch of captured land.
But Russian forces also operate large numbers of unmanned aircraft, with each side constantly adapting their machines to be able to fly further and carry larger payloads.
Another evolution is in the area of electronic warfare, which is designed to jam the signals of enemy drones and force them out of the sky. Countering this threat is critical.
Sky News was given exclusive access to a makeshift Ukrainian drone factory where engineers and other specialists from the marine brigade adapt aircraft to give them a better chance of defeating Russian jamming efforts and flying deeper into Russian-held territory.
“If you don’t want to sacrifice your men, your soldiers, you better make this fight distant, right?” said a technician at the factory, who went by the name “Cartman” from the cartoon series South Park.
He said the success rate for his unit’s drones is slightly above 50%, but even that level is getting harder to sustain as Russia improves its electronic warfare tactics.
Armed with tools and hunched over drone parts, the team here is working as hard as ever despite growing uncertainty about the future of the war.
“This is such a waste of time, of my time,” said Cartman, who volunteered to join the military last year, giving up a senior job at an international company. He spoke in English.
“While some people are creating technologies to save life and to make life better, we are working on technologies – not just to kill the enemy, but to destroy him completely.
“This is out of (contrary to) common sense, but we have no choice. There’s no way out. We have to win this war.”
Image: Cartman warned Donald Trump ‘you cannot make friends with a shark attacking you’
Asked what his message was for Mr Trump, Cartman said: “You cannot make friends with a shark attacking you. You cannot talk common sense if the animal wants to kill you.
“What negotiation skills will you apply if you have just to fight for your survival?”
Back with the marine who had The Imperial March from Star Wars bleeping out of his drone, the attack operation is under way.
The serviceman raced with a colleague to an underground shelter after attaching the mortar round to the drone, which is called “Perun”.
It is dangerous to spend too much time outside because Russian eyes are also in the sky.
After the aircraft took off, they tracked its progress on a screen which showed live footage from a video camera also fixed to the machine.
Once over a Russian position close to Pokrovsk – where the heaviest fighting is taking place – the explosive was dropped. The team confirmed a hit.
Oscar, a company commander in charge of this unit, said he had two views on the possibility of a deal that meant Russia held on to some Ukrainian land and the conflict was frozen.
On the one hand, the 22-year-old said it would be good if it meant no more Ukrainians dying.
But on the other hand, speaking in broken English, he said: “If we froze this war, it gives our enemy time for preparing [the] next attack. And this is so bad because we don’t have many people.”
Image: ‘We don’t have many people’ left to fight Russia if they regroup, Oscar said
Asked how he felt about the prospect of a frozen war, Oscar said he would be sad “because my many friends dying… I lost… men of my family… For what? For what [were they] dying?”
Additional reporting by Azad Safarov, Ukraine producer
Two senior US officials are travelling to Saudi Arabia to initiate peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
Two sources familiar with the matter told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News that national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff are on their way to Saudi.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said there had been an agreement to begin negotiations about ending the war in Ukraine, after holding phone calls with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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Zelenskyy warns against the ‘danger’ of the Russian army
The Ukrainian president alluded to the conversations at a security conference in Munich on Saturday, suggesting Europe should play a role in the negotiations as well.
“Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement, and the same rule should apply to all of Europe,” Mr Zelenskyy said.
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“A few days ago, President Trump told me about his conversation with Putin. Not once did he mention that America needs Europe at the table. That says a lot.”
However, on Saturday night, Mr Trump’s Ukraine envoy said Europe would not have a seat at the table for Ukraine peace talks.
Earlier, Washington sent a questionnaire to European capitals to ask what they could contribute to security guarantees for Kyiv.
“The old days are over when America supported Europe just because it always had,” said Mr Zelenskyy.
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Following his call with President Putin, Mr Trump posted on Truth Social saying: “We both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine.”
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‘Unlikely’ Ukraine gets old borders back
Mr Trump had told White House reporters he did not see any way “that a country in Russia’s position” could allow Ukraineto join NATO and that it was unlikely Ukraine would get all of its occupied land back.
Mr Zelenskyy said the main issue was to “not allow everything to go according to Putin’s plan”.
It comes after UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told Mr Zelenskyy in recent days that Ukraine was still on an “irreversible path” to joining NATO.
A man has stabbed five people in southern Austria, including a 14-year-old boy who has died from his injuries.
The 23-year-old man attacked five passersby in Villach on Saturday afternoon, according to police.
Officers said the suspect is a Syrian national with legal residence in Austria and has been detained.
A 42-year old man, who was driving by and saw the incident from his car, drove towards the suspect and helped prevent things from getting worse, police spokesperson Rainer Dionisio told Austria’s public broadcaster ORF.
The victims were all male and aged between 14 and 32. Two were seriously injured and two sustained minor injuries, and the teenager died, police said.
Mr Dionisio said they had not yet determined a motive but were investigating the suspect’s background.
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“We have to wait until we get secure information,” he said.
The weekend attack shocked people in the city of Villach, a southern town in the province of Carinthia, which borders Italy and Slovenia.
Carinthia governor Peter Kaiser expressed his sympathy for the family of the teenage boy who was killed.
“This outrageous atrocity must be met with harsh consequences,” he said.
“I have always said with clarity and unambiguously – those who live in Carinthia, in Austria, have to respect the law and adjust to our rules and values.”
Police said it was unclear whether the suspect had been acting on his own or with other people, and are continuing to look for potential further suspects.
A mother and her two-year-old daughter have died – and more than 30 people were injured – after a car drove into a crowd in Munich, police have said.
The incident took place on Thursday at a square close to the city’s central train station at around 10.30am (9.30am UK time), officials said.
Here is everything we know:
What happened?
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Video shows aftermath of incident
The car – a cream-coloured Mini Cooper – was driven into the crowd on a street called Seidlstrasse in a central area of the city.
The crowd was taking part in a demonstration organised by a trade union, and a police car was following them as they walked, deputy police chief Christian Huber said.
Image: A map showing where the incident occurred
“Then a vehicle approached it from behind,” he added.
“It approached the police car to overtake it, and then accelerated and drove into the back of the demonstration.”
The badly damaged Mini could be seen after the attack along with items of clothing and bags, a broken pram, a shoe and a pair of glasses scattered across the floor.
Image: Police inspect damaged Mini after the incident. Pic: Reuters
Image: A sniffer dog inspects the vehicle. Pic: Reuters
A man was arrested at the scene after police fired a shot at the car vehicle.
What we know about the victims
Image: Emergency services at the scene. Pic: Peter Kneffel/dpa via AP
Police on Saturday said a 37-year-old mother from Munich and her daughter were the first fatalities from the incident.
Officials had earlier said a total of at least 36 people were injured.
In Friday’s news conference, they said one adult and one child were “very seriously injured” and eight other people were seriously injured.
Who is the suspect?
The man arrested was a 24-year-old Afghan national, Farhad N, who came to Germany as an asylum seeker.
Officials say Farhad N has lived in Munich since he arrived as an unaccompanied minor in 2016, and has no previous convictions.
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Police speak to media on day of attack
The man’s asylum application was rejected, but he had not been forced to leave due to security concerns in Afghanistan and he was in Germany legally with a work permit.
Prosecutors say he is now under investigation on 36 counts of attempted murder as well as bodily harm and dangerous interference with road traffic.
Do we know the motives?
At the news conference on Friday, prosecutor Gabriele Tilmann said the suspect appeared to have had a “religious motivation”.
In questioning, he “gave an explanation that I would summarise as religious motivation,” she said, adding the suspect shouted “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is great”, to police and then prayed after his arrest.
She said he admitted to police that he “deliberately drove into the participants of the demonstration”.
“I’m very cautious about making hasty judgements, but based on everything we know at the moment, I would venture to speak of an Islamist motivation for the crime,” she added.
Image: Police on the scene. Pic: Matthias Balk/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
Image: Pic: AP
She clarified that the authorities had no reason to believe that the perpetrator was affiliated with any Islamist or terrorist organisations and that they had not found any evidence of him having accomplices.
She said they were now looking through his devices to see “whether other people knew about the attack before it happened, or if he was part of a network”.
The incident happened shortly before world leaders including US vice president JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in the southern city for the Munich Security Conference, which started on Friday.
But police have said the incident is not thought to be related to the conference.
Incident comes amid immigration tensions
Security and immigration have been in sharp focus in Germany ahead of a federal election next week and following a string of violent attacks, with the far-right party AfD party doing well in polls.
Two months ago, a Saudi doctor was accused of driving his car into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six and injuring hundreds.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the Munich incident as a “terrible attack” and said the perpetrator “must be punished and he must leave the country”.
His comments come after the government said last year it was resuming flights for convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country.
“It is very important for me to get the message across that anyone who commits crimes in Germany will not only be severely punished and sent to prison, they must also expect that they will not be able to continue their stay in Germany,” he said.
“That’s why I managed to get the government I lead to resume and carry out repatriations to Afghanistan, despite the lack of diplomatic relations,” he said.
He added: “We have already organised such a flight with criminals… we are also in the process of doing this in other cases. And not just once, but on an ongoing basis.
“This perpetrator cannot count on any leniency, he must be punished and he must leave the country.”