Cont.
“We had to think out of the box to survive,” said Ignatukha. The informal unit, clad in a miscellany of T-shirts, looks more like a tech startup than a palace guard.
No more lions
East of Kostyantynivka, men of the Alcatraz Battalion are fighting Russia’s infantry and trying to survive its drones. The unit, part of the 93rd Brigade, is made up of convicted criminals who have signed up to be assault troops. Honorable service gets a conditional release or pardon. The first missions last year went well, said men in the unit. But drones are exacting a growing toll.
Convicted thief Pavlo Shyptenko has survived four attacks by FPVs. He was rescuing a wounded comrade this spring when a quadcopter dropped a grenade on him. A tree branch broke the grenade’s fall, saving Shyptenko, but coin-sized bits of shrapnel still cut into his back and neck.
Full of adrenaline, he carried the wounded man to a car and only noticed a terrible pain when he sat down to drive, he said. Now he’s telling new recruits what to do if there’s a drone above them.
End.