Russian drone swarms are testing a voluntary air defense unit near Kyiv

Dressed in khaki fatigue, the Ukrainian volunteers began on a concrete terrace while twilight swallowed the surrounding fields. Music sank from a phone, mixing with laughter – ephemeral ease before what they were notified would be a “hot night”.

They were members of one of the many civil units keeping the sky around the capital, Kyiv, a recent Saturday evening, their work to shoot down the incoming Russian drones using old machine guns supplied by the Ukrainian army. As they do every evening, volunteers – university professors, manufacturers, sellers – were ready at their base in Pereiaslav, a city 80 kilometers south -east of kyiv, pending the deployment of the signal.

At 11:35 p.m., Mykhailo’s phone rang. He picked it up, then shouted: “Let’s go!”

The pursuit was on.

Mykhailo and the other two members of his crew jumped in a gray van parked at the foot of the terrace and rushed, heading through narrow roads in the countryside. They stopped next to a field open a few minutes later and jumped. Moving quickly, they set up three tripods – two for machine guns, the third for night vision twins and a laser.

Then, Mykhailo – who, like the other crew members of this article, asked to be identified only by his first name for security reasons, according to the military protocol – looked at a tablet fixed on the hood of the van. Its screen turned on by a swarm of red triangles that sweep a live card from Ukraine; They showed Russian attack drones, several tens of kilometers away.

“Three in the lead,” said Mykhailo, who is a day union representative. “Let’s wait.”

While Russia intensifies its drone attacks against UkraineVolunteer teams like that of Pereiaslav spend white nights trying to repel them. While the crew was deployed last Saturday, Russia launched a record of 472 drones and lures in Ukraine. This Friday, Russia sent another swarm of more than 400 drones and lures, in more than 40 cruise missiles and six ballistic missiles in cities across the country, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, in One of the greatest dams in the war.