Meet the young Americans helping Ukrainians to use drones that save lives in war

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."A little more throttle,” said Bailey, gently touching the joystick controller. “Watch the screen, not the drone.”

“Da, yes,” said Kroshchenko, 25, as he mastered the subtle pitch and yaw of a device designed - with laser guidance, night-vision and a concrete-penetrating signal - to operate in the kind of grisly rubble being created daily by Russian missiles and shells.

Nearby, two others - Ukrainian military officers who had travelled secretly into Poland - were practising another wartime application: using the drones to soar above ridgelines and buildings to peer down at enemy forces and feed targeting locations to artillery units and reconnaissance information to commanders.

They were rehearsing these new skills amid the sheds and garages outside a public safety facility in northern Poland, where the military officers and 10 others from the Ukrainian Emergency Service had come to meet a team from Brinc, a Seattle-based drone maker.

Polish officials asked that the exact location of the training not be identified because of security concerns.

The Ukrainians now hoped the aircraft would make a difference in the growing hellscapes of Kharkiv, Kherson and Dnipro, Ukrainian cities where a lack of equipment and relentless attacks have made rescues difficult and perilous.

“There are many destroyed buildings and the conditions are too dangerous,” said Yan Koshman, a rescue official from an area near the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv who was waiting his turn at the controls. “This drone can go where we can’t.”...

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