War in Ukraine

With drone swarms and real-time satellite feeds, how do you hide an army? How do you cross a border that the enemy spent months fortifying? Ukraine found out in August 2024, when its forces entered Russia’s Kursk region and launched its offensive. This is how it happened.

The term “Human Safari” sounds like a premise from a dystopian fictional novel, but for those living along the Dnipro River, it isn’t the case. It’s the name Ukrainian locals and journalists have given to Russia’s campaign of drone terror, where FPV drones are deployed not for military objectives but to hunt down civilians.

You may already know the long journey coffee takes from distant farms to expert roasters to your morning mug. Now add Russian airstrikes to that process. Across Ukraine, even under fire, people still brew. This is how they keep the ritual alive.

Ukraine is investing heavily in drones. Lacking the same manpower resources as Russia, the Ukrainian army is increasingly fighting with unmanned systems. Against this backdrop, a slogan has even emerged: robots and drones go into battle first. Russian army losses in December 2025 underscore the effectiveness of this approach.

A false claim by Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov about an alleged Ukrainian drone attack on one of Vladimir Putin’s residences has drawn renewed attention to where the Russian leader actually lives, and to a network of official and unofficial palaces—revealed through investigations, satellite imagery, and leaked records—designed for secrecy, luxury, and protection from modern threats such as drones.

War isn’t won by weapons alone. Ukraine’s Armed Forces are using battlefield grit and message discipline to rally a nation to resist the Russian aggression, building a fighting force from the ground up.