Located on the banks of the Dnipro river, about 90 kilometres south east of Kyiv, the small town of Pereiaslav is situated squarely in the flight path for Russia’s near-nightly drone and missile attacks that target the Ukrainian capital.
Residents now recognise the sounds of drones flying overhead. “Last night at 10pm I heard a Shahed drone fly over my house, about ten metres above the ground,” says Vyacheslav Saulko, the mayor of Pereiaslav.
“Straight away I called the commander of the mobile aerial defence unit. He told me he’d spotted it and that his team was looking for possible places to shoot it down. If it’s hit above the houses, it can do a lot of damage.”
The commander of the mobile aerial defence unit, Oleh Voroshylovskyi, is a former high-ranking public servant who is now used to wearing a military uniform. For the past 12 months he has led the group of around 40 civilian volunteers who monitor the night skies for enemy drones and try to destroy them before they hit their targets.
Each week Voroshylovskyi reports to the mayor’s office for a debrief on their work.
“Our fellow citizens have toughened up and they don’t panic,” Saulko says, “but the fact that the drones fly over every evening has become the norm. We need to inform them so that they can protect themselves and get to safety.”
Local knowledge, military organisation
Mobile aerial defence units made up of civilian volunteers are in operation across Ukraine, but Pereiaslav’s has been particularly successful – to date they have shot down 31 drones in their territory. On a training ground outside the town, in cold sunshine, three groups each made up of four volunteers drill the moves they will have to perform by night with speed and precision, under intense pressure. Coordination is essential.
“They are all volunteers and they are all highly competent,” Voroshylovskyi says. “We wear army uniforms and follow military processes because we’re handling weapons and it is dangerous.” He adds that, so far, the team has not had any accidents, injuries or deaths.
Mavka, a computer science student and former journalist, has her eyes fixed on a tablet showing radar data from the army so that she can give orders on where the group should move to and when to open fire.
“I communicate with the military commander. I receive information and share it with my three teammates: where the drone is flying, its altitude and how we should position ourselves,” she says.
“We’re connected to the aerial defence control centre. The military shares coded signals with us. Each group can see what the army radars see,” Voroshylovskyi adds.
Along with their training, the volunteers use their knowledge of the area. “They are locals. They know all the roads, all the pathways, all the villages,” Voroshylovskyi says. “Our success depends on our ability to move fast and how quickly we can analyse data on the drone’s trajectory. When it changes direction, we change position. That’s where the team’s local knowledge comes into play.”
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Guns vs drones
Construction worker Makhno is a shooter, armed with a Soviet-era Maxim heavy machine gun made in 1944. The model was invented in Great Britain more than a century ago.
The outdated weapon, which holds 200 rounds of 7.62-caliber ammunition and has a range of around 1km, might seem a poor match for a remote-controlled Shahed drone which can carry up to 80 kg of explosives and travel at up to 400 km/h.
“But it’s still precise and effective,” Voroshylovskyi says. “We have transformed the Maxim into an air defence system and its already shot down two drones.”
The group recovered its weapons from army warehouses and mounted them on pickup trucks and tripods. Their other machine guns include the DP27, with its famous round wafer-shaped magazine, used by Russia’s Red Army decades ago, and the VZ59, a Czechoslovakian weapon designed in the 1950s.
Despite their outdated guns, the volunteers know that the mobile aerial defence unit provides a crucial service for Ukraine. In recent months they have noticed Russia has been flying decoys to reveal the positions of the units and waste their ammunition.
“We know that each drone that we shoot down means lives are saved. Even if we damage, rather than destroy, a drone, it can miss its target and we might save our power plants.” Mavka says. “There are mobile firing units throughout Ukraine, we’re just one part of a much larger network.”
Makhno’s teammate, 28-year-old computer technician Petro, is originally from Donbas. Along with 3.6 million Ukrainians he was displaced by the conflict with Russia. He sees his volunteer work as a patriotic duty.
“I already lost my house in Donetsk in 2014. I moved to live here, in Pereiaslav, 11 years ago. Now, it makes sense for me to protect people here and in Kyiv,” he says.
This article was adapted from the original in French.
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