ASMA KHALID, HOST:
The Ukrainian army has been struggling to slow Russia's advance in the east. Facing a manpower shortage, Ukraine is relying more and more on unmanned flying attack drones. NPR's Brian Mann was able to visit a secret drone command post near the front lines in Pokrovsk and joins us now from Kyiv. Good morning, Brian.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Good morning, Asma.
KHALID: Can you describe where you went to see these attack drones?
MANN: Well, it's interesting. Ukraine's military actually made it hard to know exactly where I was, the location of these command posts. It's a carefully guarded secret. I was guided in an armored car to a village outside Pokrovsk. It's a key coal mining town and transportation hub that's been under siege by Russia since spring. Soldiers brought me in darkness to a workshop, where I saw technicians building these drones. They're black, five-bladed devices about the size of a small lawn mower. Then they took me to a command post, where teams coordinate these drone attacks across a huge battlefield.
KHALID: And once you were there, what did you see?
MANN: Well, these attacks are actually terrifying to watch. The drones operate at night. Their cameras see in infrared. So on a big flat-screen TV, Asma, I watched as one drone spotted a Russian soldier. He was moving forward, trying to get close to Ukrainian positions. His body heat was visible against the snowy ground. And I had my recorder on while this was happening.
OK. The camera's zooming in on bright heat signatures, and a bomb is dropping. You can see it falling and another flare of light - a large explosion now.
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: (Speaking Ukrainian).
MANN: And the Ukrainians, Asma, said that Russian soldier was killed. I was standing next to a Ukrainian soldier who goes by the call sign Pip who coordinates attacks that these drone pilots were working that night. He said their job is to disrupt as many Russian assaults as they can.
PIP: We're doing this every day, nonstop, 24 hours.
MANN: Are they also doing this?
PIP: With us, yes.
MANN: So both ways?
PIP: Yes.
MANN: And that's a brutal reality of this war. These drones - they're killing a lot of Russians and Ukrainians.
KHALID: And it sounds like, from your reporting, Brian, that these remote-controlled weapons are being used by both sides - by both Russia and Ukraine. So are they actually making a difference for Ukraine in its fight?
MANN: A lot of military analysts think Ukraine has been more creative than Russia, more effective using this kind of technology. A group called the Institute for the Study of War did an analysis, found Russia losing huge numbers of soldiers, killed and wounded, as they grind forward in one two-week period. This month, Russia lost 3,000 troops in the Pokrovsk area. Russian President Vladimir Putin has downplayed those casualties and says his army is winning. And I did speak to one of these Ukrainian soldiers in the drone unit, a technician named Yuri. We agreed to only use his first name for security reasons. He told me drones alone won't stop Russia.
YURI: We try to take out as many as we can before they reach our positions, but sometimes there are just too many and it's impossible to hold.
MANN: So Ukraine keeps slowly retreating. But after roughly eight months of this intense fighting, this key city, Pokrovsk, still hasn't fallen. And that's in large part because of these drone units.
KHALID: NPR's Brian Mann, with the latest from near the front lines in Eastern Ukraine. Thanks so much for your reporting.
MANN: Thanks, Asma. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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