Russian drones responsible for 90% of casualties near key city, Ukrainian doctor says

• Russian FPV drones injured 90% of wounded soldiers near Chasiv Yar, a Ukrainian doctor said.
• Drone warfare is dominating the fighting around this key city, a kyiv-based journalist said.
• Russia is also using glide bombs to strike other Ukrainian positions, the kyiv-based journalist said.

Russian attack drones inflicted about 90% of the war injuries suffered by Ukrainian soldiers around a key city over the past six months, according to a doctor stationed on the Eastern Front.

Kyiv Independent journalist Asami Terajima told Business Insider that she spoke to a doctor called Oleksii who was treating soldiers at a stabilization point near the front line, near Chasiv Yar, before they be transported to hospitals.

The majority of Oleksii's patients over the past six months have been injured by FPV Drones (First Person View)Terajima said.

The strategic town of Chasiv Yar has been the target of a Russian offensive since December.

Russian troops advanced steadily west from the ruins of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, seizing a dozen small villages and closing in on Chasiv Yar and a key highway to the south.

Terajima said FPV drone warfare was a major feature of the fighting in Donetsk Oblast, especially in the Bakhmut region.

She added that in other parts of the Eastern Front, Ukrainian soldiers were being overwhelmed by hovering bombs.

“Soldiers in the Avdiivka region complained a lot about the glide bombs which are still used very intensively,” she told BI.

Russia intensified its use of glide bombs in October when it launched its offensive against Avdiivka.

Powerful bombs are transformed into glide weapons by adding fins and modified guidance systems. They are launched at a distance from combat aircraft and are difficult to spot on radar and shoot down.

Terajima said Ukrainian soldiers told him that in the final days before the fall of Avdiivka in February, Russian forces were dropping about 60 glide bombs a day.

“Ukrainian soldiers can barely visit their families, and it’s really demoralizing when Russian forces step up the use of glide bombs,” Terajima said. “They’re really, really scary.”

However, some NATO members recently lifted restrictions on Ukraine using its advanced weapons to strike military targets in Russia, giving Ukraine new battlefield options to fight against hovering bombs.

“These policy changes will allow Ukrainian forces to use Western-supplied systems to strike Russian firing and staging areas in Russian border areas and airspace,” wrote conflict analysts at the Institute for the Study of War.

Another Ukrainian defeat could be imminent

Terajima recently reported on the difficult situation on the front line in Ukraine, near the village of Ivanivske in Donestk, in mid-May.

The settlement, strategically located between Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar, is now under serious threat, she said.

Russian forces began their assault on Ivanivske in February, and by April they controlled the main roads. Despite fierce house-to-house fighting, Ukrainian troops were gradually pushed back.

She said that while the Ukrainian military is determined to present the ongoing battle as under control, it would be difficult to hold Ivanivske.

“In Ivanivske, everything is destroyed and there is nowhere to hide,” Terajima told BI. “You can’t build a trench because there’s concrete underneath that stops you from digging any further.”

Lt. Col. Nazar Volochyn, spokesman for the Khortytsia grouping in the region, denied that Ivanivske was about to fall.

Terajima told BI that Ukraine is committed to maintaining a resilient image and its coverage detailing Ukraine's losses is therefore considered “taboo” and “provocative” because it taints that image.

“The Russian forces are suffering heavy losses, but they continue to advance at a pace that we do not like,” Terajima said.

By downplaying these advances, “we are fundamentally distracting from reality, not allowing the public to understand what is happening,” she said.

“I think that no matter what happens, we always have to be honest and tell it like it is. And if we have heavy losses, then I think we have to say that.”