How Russia avoids detection with its strikes from the skies over Ukraine

There is a semblance of normalcy in life in Ukraine’s big cities if we ignore the air raid sirens, the booming sounds of anti-aircraft fire, the menacing drone of drones passing overhead and the streets dark neighborhoods which take their turn within the framework of rolling power. reductions affecting all of Ukraine.

Like I said, if you ignore all of the above, it’s no big deal, and many people do.

Kyiv seems particularly normal. Shops and restaurants are open, I’m told theater performances are sometimes sold out, and sometimes families can still be seen taking photos in front of the capital’s magnificent churches and cathedrals.

But late at night, the city begins to change.

In recent days, mostly at night, air raid apps have lit up with warnings to “seek shelter,” while the sound of sirens pierced the city’s still, frigid air.

From different directions, I watched as anti-aircraft batteries tracked and tracked Russian drones invading kyiv in unprecedented numbers – the tracers of their machine guns firing into the night sky and the ominous orange glow in the distance of possible missile strikes.

The capital is being targeted like never before, so much so that the army has assigned special anti-aircraft units, particularly for the defense of kyiv.

Attacking this city is in part a Russian tactic aimed at depleting its population and creating fear and uncertainty.

But many of its drones and missiles target the country’s energy infrastructure. Russia wants to turn off the lights here and, if possible, literally freeze the resistance of this people.

A necessity, periodic power outages are now the norm while engineers repair power plants and power lines. Power generation capacity is already limited after years of targeting, and as temperatures drop, authorities must save wherever they can.

For families, the threat of an air attack never goes away

I walked through the streets of kyiv’s left-wing suburbs, dark buildings silhouetted against the city’s skyline.

The dim lights inside the apartments are provided by generators or car batteries plugged into makeshift electrical circuits plastered on the walls and ceilings.

Alona emerged from the doors of her building into a dark parking lot, her torch glinting off the remains of winter’s first snow, now turned to ice.

I followed her down three flights of stairs to her apartment and was introduced to her husband, Yevhen, and their two-year-old child, Oles.

For families in particular, the threat of an air attack never goes away. In many ways, it’s psychological warfare, and Alona said it’s taking a toll on her and her baby boy Oles.

“The hardest thing, by far, is at night when you put your child to sleep in the bathroom or when you have to rush to the shelter in the middle of the night. It’s really hard because it disrupts the child’s routine. child,” she explained.

“He’s not sleeping properly, everything is upside down for him, he’s terrified and he was starting to get scared of the alarms.”

“It’s always deeply scary to be out in the open.”

Alona explained to me how her family tries to determine the risk of a strike in their area when air raid sirens go off, then decides whether or not to seek shelter accordingly.

This family is typical of thousands of people here: they are afraid to stay home and go out.

“I saw a missile being shot down and let me tell you, it was terrifying,” Alona said.

“It’s a haunting experience, even though I’m here now, telling you how we “measure” the scale of danger, it’s still deeply frightening to be out in the open.”

The military doing its best to track down Russian drones

After traveling to see family, I went to meet a mobile air defense group belonging to the National Guard. I followed them to a frozen field where they settled to maintain their position in the darkness of night and subzero temperatures.

There are only a handful of hundreds, if not thousands, of soldiers across the country doing the same.

These men, led by their commander Serhii, do their best to track incoming drones with radar and use large searchlights to scan the sky when they think a Russian drone is nearby.

“The enemy is changing tactics”

Russian tactics, however, have changed. Nearly half are harmless decoys designed to waste time and bullets. The other half is fatal.

“The enemy is changing tactics, trying different maneuvers,” Serhii told me.

“They attempt to approach in groups at low altitude to avoid detection by radar. Some targets fly high and are visible on radar, while another group flies low and evades air defense systems .”

He showed me a program developed in Ukraine on a tablet that tracks and monitors the movements of drones and missiles.

“Here it shows the movement of aerial targets in real time in our engagement zone,” he explained, pointing on his screen to a swarm of drones flying over Ukrainian territory.

People try to carry on as normal as attacks increase

No one is sure whether Russia’s main tactic is to target energy infrastructure or to sow fear, or both. What they know is that the attacks have increased.

“I can’t say what specific (reason) this is, whether it’s just terror so people don’t feel safe and creating (an) unstable situation or whether it’s some kind of facilities that they’re trying to target, but they’re functioning, it’s like it’s normal,” Pavlo Yurov, of the National Guard’s “hurricane” brigade, told me.

Under the rudimentary protective dome of the National Guard, people try to carry on with their lives while restaurant and store staff dress Christmas trees and hang fairy lights, but this war is terribly depressing for everyone.

Young men are afraid of being conscripted and many are in hiding. The news from the Eastern Front is never good, the Russians are seizing more and more land.

Another Christmas is coming, and like the last two, it will likely pass without any sign of peace.