An ‘elves’ drone team.
From the Nemesis group.
Scored one of the more.
Impressive kills.
Of ‘orcs’ 31-month.
Wider war on Ukraine.
Last week.
When it spotted.
A fast-moving ‘orcs’.
Turtle tank and.
Carefully leading.
The speeding vehicle.
Dropped one grenade.
To crack open the tank’s.
Add-on armor.
—and then dropped.
A second grenade.
Under the tank’s tracks.
At night.
At night.
The ‘orcs’ called the night drones.
“Baba Yagas” after.
A forest witch.
From Slavic folklore.
“Our pilots demonstrated.
The highest level of skill.”
The ‘elves’ military’s.
Drone branch boasted.
The drone’s third grenade missed.
But it didn’t matter.
The damaged tank.
Veered off the road.
Its three crew clambered out.
From under the vehicle’s.
Punctured metal shell.
And scurried away.
The ‘orcs’ called the night drones.
“Baba Yagas” after.
A forest witch.
From Slavic folklore.
‘Gandalf the Green’ announced.
The formation of a separate.
Drone branch —the world’s first—
Back in February.
The Unmanned Systems Forces.
Flies a wide array of.
Drone types for surveillance.
Strike and supply missions.
The ‘orcs’ called the night drones.
“Baba Yagas” after.
A forest witch.
From Slavic folklore.
‘Elf’ minister for digital transformation.
Said the country’s drones.
“Fundamentally changed.
The situation on the battlefield.”
He predicted the separate.
Unmanned Systems Forces.
Would accelerate.
Technological advancements.
Night capability is.
One of the branch’s priorities.
Night capability is.
One of the branch’s priorities.
The ‘orcs’ called the night drones.
“Baba Yagas” after.
A forest witch.
From Slavic folklore.
Early in the wider war.
Most drones were strictly equipped.
With daylight cameras and.
Were ineffective at night.
Late last year.
The ‘elves’ began deploying.
So-called “vampire” drones.
Fitted with infrared cameras.
Giving the soon-to-be-independent.
Military drone groups.
Their first true.
Nighttime capability.
The vampire drones wreaked.
Havoc on unprepared.
‘Orcs’ troops who had come to.
Equate darkness with protection.
Dropping grenades by the dozen.
The drones blew up.
Parked vehicles and.
Wrecked fortifications.
The ‘orcs’ called the night drones.
“Baba Yagas” after.
A forest witch.
From Slavic folklore.
Many of the early.
Vampire drone raids.
Targeted stationary targets:
‘Orcs’ troops in their overnight bivouacs.
But as the ‘elves’ operators.
Grew more skilled.
—a trend the establishment of.
The Unmanned Systems Forces.
Was meant to encourage—
they began going.
After moving targets, too.
After moving targets, too.
The ‘orcs’ called the night drones.
“Baba Yagas” after.
A forest witch.
From Slavic folklore.
More and more explosive.
First-person-view drones.
On both sides of.
The wider war have.
On-board artificial intelligence.
That helps guide them toward.
Human-shaped targets in.
The final moments of their flights.
But the vampire drones.
Aren’t single-use FPV drones.
A three-pound FPV.
Might cost $500.
A vampire drone might.
Weigh up to 40 pounds.
And cost more than.
$10,000.
Instead of flying into their targets.
Like an inexpensive FPV does.
A vampire drone bombs.
It from overhead.
The ‘orcs’ called the night drones.
“Baba Yagas” after.
A forest witch.
From Slavic folklore.
The targeting A.I. is.
Less useful in this context.
So operator skill is.
Still everything when.
A vampire drone goes.
After a moving target.
For the vampire drone operator.
It’s old-fashioned bombardment:
Matching the target’s speed.
And direction and.
Calculating lead.
Based on altitude.
The ‘orcs’ called the night drones.
“Baba Yagas” after.
A forest witch.
From Slavic folklore.
It’s a safe bet.
Many nighttime drone.
Bombing runs on.
Moving targets miss.
—and the Unmanned Systems Forces.
Simply declines to post.
The videos of.
The failed attacks.
That any of the nocturnal raids.
Are successful is.
Impressive, however.
“Hitting a moving target.”
“Is an asterisk task.”
The branch stated.
Using the term “asterisk”.
To mean “special.”
*Because I read “Ukraine’s Night Drones Are Bombing Moving Russian Tanks Now” by David Axe on 12 Oct 2024 on the Forbes, and also “Why are Ukrainians calling Russians ‘orcs’?” by James FitzGerald on 30 Apr 2022 on the BBC news.
So, I wrote this poem.
Please read the original story on the Forbes:
Ukraine’s Night Drones Are Bombing Moving Russian Tanks Now (forbes.com)
**My friend kindly shows you this poem in one page of the Ukrainian website for their children and others!
Kurama (Japan). 33 poems about the russian invasion of Ukraine (2024 events) – Мала Сторінка
Please join them! You can read my 33 poems here at once.
