Russian quad bike raids, 3D printed drones and a lack of ammo: Life on the front line in Ukraine’s Robotyne

Pixelated?in the thermal drone imagery, the quad bike races down a dirt track, its destination unclear. It swerves?and is?hit by a grenade, dropped from a Ukrainian drone. Russian soldiers appear to stagger?away?from it, one rolling.

The imagery, supplied to CNN, shows the latest, almost suicidal tactics used along the southern Zaporizhzhia front by an emboldened Russian military, unafraid to sacrifice personnel in the pursuit of an unclear goal.

Bohdan, the driver of a Belgian-donated armored vehicle, says Russian drones have limited the use of his protected “box” to evacuate casualties from the front line.

A series of attacks by Russian troops, normally three?to a quad bike, have struck Ukrainian positions at night in recent weeks, soldiers along the Robotyne?front line?told CNN. Drone imagery also?shows?quad bikes, also known as ATVs, aflame in the daylight, on empty, ghostly plains of rubble and carcasses.

The use of drones by both Ukrainian and Russian forces has become so widespread?across the?front line?now,?the?soldiers said,?that?most?maneuvers?– from troop rotations to assaults – occur in darkness when the cheap, single-use?weapons, which fly explosives?into their targets, are less effective.

Kokos, a former children’s entertainer turned drone pilot in the 15th National Guard unit, said?quad bikes were?“more?maneuverable?than tracked vehicles. It’s hard for artillery to hit them, so we have to use drones.”

Kokos, a former children’s entertainer turned drone pilot.

He said some of the captured Russians had seemed intoxicated. “We heard from prisoners of war how they are given pills before assaults. After capture, they won’t eat or sleep for a day.” He added of the assaults at night:?“They just keep coming.”

Bohdan,?the?driver of a Belgian-donated?armored?vehicle, said?Russian?drones had limited the use of his protected “box” to evacuate casualties from the?front line. “Our job got harder because of numerous drones flying around. The guys have to carry the injured to the extraction point between 2 and 8 kilometers?(1.2 and 5 miles) away. It depends on the shelling.”

Ukrainian forces along the Robotyne?front line?are facing a painful Russian resurgence aimed at taking the tiny village that became one of the main gains on the southwestern front of the summer counteroffensive.

A view shows destroyed multi-storey residential buildings in the town of Avdiivka in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, as seen from Yasynuvata (Yasinovataya) in the Donetsk region, Russian-controlled Ukraine, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

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Weeks of intense fighting preceded the Ukrainian flag being hoisted inside the village, and periodic battles continued around its rubble over the winter.

Yet since the fall of Avdiivka on February 17, Ukrainian military officials have reported regular Russian assaults on Robotyne. CNN observed the smoking remains of a Russian?armored?personnel carrier along the village’s southern edges, via drone on Wednesday morning, the remnants of the previous night’s attack.

Anthey, from the 65th?Mechanised?Brigade, told CNN: “They usually advance with?two or three?vehicles – sometimes up to 15.” He said infantry was in support. “This happens all the time. There is no concrete time when they do it.”.

Like many Ukrainian soldiers along the Robotyne?front line, he said the lack of ammunition caused by a delay in US financial and military aid?was “forcing them to underperform.” He said?there is?a “dramatic lack of ammo. It affects how many rounds we can spend on a target.”

Destroyed buildings in Orikhiv, a city that has been shelled relentlessly.

His commander, Anton, said the unit used to fire 80 rounds a day, during the NATO-financed and aided counteroffensive,?but now fired about 10.

He has spent more time thinking about Republican procedural dysfunctionality than you might expect for a man cheating death by shellfire in an underground bunker.

“I hardly understand the?Republican policy on aiding Ukraine,”?he said.

“The biggest problem is lack of ammo. We are waiting, we wait for it very much. We urgently need it. More ammunition equals saving more lives of our soldiers and civilians.”

On the drone monitors flickering near him, another grenade drops into a trench. Two Russian soldiers?can be seen?clambering inside the ruins of a dugout, one manhandling a shovel.

TOPSHOT - Ukrainian anti-aircraft gunners of the 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade Kholodny Yar monitor the sky from their positions in the direction of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on February 20, 2024. (Photo by Anatolii STEPANOV / AFP) (Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images)

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Ukrainian drone pilots now face?Russian counterparts who have?replaced?their?units but at a much larger scale, they said. “We don’t have their numbers, they mass produce everything. The quality is lower but they have lots of them. They send one, it gets suppressed by our jammers, and they instantly send another one.”

He said a new threat was so-called FPV?(first-person view)?attack drones, controlled from a gaming headset?and?equipped with night vision. In the background of the small farming cottage in which the unit was based whirred a 3D printer, churning out components for drones. Kokos estimated they could “print” parts for about?10?drones a day, but were crowdfunding as supplies were limited.

Saint, another drone pilot, 22,?from Lviv, held up a captured Russian?FPV drone, which he said was “manufactured much better than ours. Ours are made from carbon. Theirs?are?aluminium. That means extra shrapnel and a bigger payload.”