Ukrainian sergeant Viktor, who serves in an air defense battalion of one of the brigades defending Kostiantynivka, says today’s war bears little resemblance to the campaign of 2022. His unit works with interceptor UAVs and targets reconnaissance drones, Shaheds, and fiber-optic-controlled aircraft. According to him, such FPV drones are immune to standard electronic warfare, although they are easier to spot in flight because of the spool and are less maneuverable.
In Kramatorsk, Viktor shows drone footage and monitors live reconnaissance feeds that commanders and duty officers watch around the clock. Any assault groups detected from the air, he says, are usually hit immediately. Viktor volunteered in 2022, fought in Bakhmut, and recalls that Russian assaults then looked different: now, in his words, it is a “full-scale drone war,” where three soldiers can hold a large house and four may be enough to storm it.
“Now the hardest part is not fighting itself. The hardest part is getting into a position and then getting back out,” Viktor says.
He says his vehicle, which had been delivering ammunition and supplies, was recently struck on the return trip by a fiber-optic FPV drone. The car itself cost 200,000 to 300,000 hryvnias, and the powerful electronic warfare system on it was worth about 350,000 hryvnias. The protection helped save the crew, but the vehicle was later finished off by follow-up strikes. In Viktor’s view, the traditional line of contact has blurred: in its place there is now a “kill zone” stretching 5 to 10, and sometimes up to 15 kilometers, where nearly everything that moves is targeted.
He describes Russian drone units including Rubikon and Sudny Den as a serious threat. In his account, these teams have advanced equipment and can sharply disrupt logistics. He also mentions cheap long-range aircraft such as the Privet-82, which can carry explosives or act as carriers for other drones. Such systems, assembled from basic components, he says, are still capable of striking targets dozens of kilometers away.
Viktor is 37. He says the war has already taken four years from him and his family. Meanwhile, daily life near the front continues under bombardment: on November 26, 2025, three glide bombs weighing 250 kilograms each hit the Lazurnyi district of Kramatorsk, and on November 29, Smerch multiple-launch rocket fire landed near the city’s central covered market, sparking a large blaze. Viktor, who fought in Bakhmut and Klishchiivka, says he will keep doing his job wherever the war pushes him next.