The house where 14 members of Brigade 148 are stationed is starting to resemble a car graveyard. Outside this Ukrainian rural building, vehicles ranging from barely repaired to completely wrecked are piled up. "Yours is almost repaired," says Olexander, the lieutenant of the unit. The off-road vehicle we are going to travel to the war front in is dented, scratched, and shaky, missing two wheels with a problem that no one seems able to solve immediately. A large trident, the national shield of Ukraine, is painted on the hood.
- Are you sure they will repair it today?
There is time for a coffee where Olexander and Captain Yevgeny recall the recent incidents with Russian drones. "Before, it was the infantry that died, and the artillerymen felt safer because their positions were a bit further from the front line. Now, with drones of greater range, they attack in coordinated swarms, making it harder to detect them. They also use drones with fiber optics, making it even more challenging to work." The massive use of these drones in some areas is creating a kind of spider web in the trees at the front by breaking their cables.
Alerted by the mechanics, we all look to the horizon. After the ground trembles with something resembling a distant earthquake, three huge black mushrooms rise tens of kilometers away.
- These damn pidars are dropping guided bombs.
- Many. Especially on the final stretch of the journey, the last few minutes. The five artillerymen you are going to see have been living in a dugout shelter there for three weeks to avoid traveling on that road. When we prepare rotations or evacuations, we do them at night because there are few drones with night vision. However, you are going to travel in broad daylight, that's why we don't like working with journalists. That car you see there is the result of a drone attack in broad daylight. The driver managed to evade the pursuing device but had an accident. He will be your driver today.
The damaged vehicle has lost the front axle and remains there waiting for the same mechanics to take care of it. Meanwhile, in the house, the resting artillerymen cut wood or prepare dinner. "Even in this house, there are threats," says Olexander. As promised, minutes later they notify us that the car is ready: it now has all four wheels and makes a strange sound, like a groan, with each bump, but it runs. Vest, helmet, and a bag with refreshments, cookies, and chocolates for the cannon crew awaiting us. We are going to witness the firing of an M777, heavy artillery delivered by USA, possibly the most lethal and precise howitzer in NATO according to its own crews.
The journey is calm at first. We pass many cars, and the atmosphere does not reveal that we are close to war. But as we advance, the vehicles disappear until we are the only ones on the country road. The driver occasionally checks his mobile screen, where he receives updated reports of drones spotted in the sky, accelerating more as we approach the last critical stretch, nervously looking up at the sky. Then he connects the drone inhibiting antenna on the roof, emitting electromagnetic waves as if to melt our brains. This system, almost always makeshift, is bolted on top and connected to a device with thick cables resembling the flux capacitor feeder from Back to the Future. A buzzing sound comes from its black box: brrrrr.
The last 10 minutes of the journey to the tree line feel very long. To ease the tension, Yevgeny asks if bullfighters in Spain eat the bull's meat after killing it. I am explaining that it has nothing to do with the meat when we finally reach the artillery position and take shelter in the shade of a leafy spring Ukrainian forest. Our eyes adjust to the darkness as we enter a maze of trenches dug into the black earth covered by camouflage nets, a construction hard to spot from the outside. A door opens to the shelter on one side. Inside, the five cannon servers welcome us. In that stifling space, five adult men have been living almost without going out for three weeks. Gray beards, some wrinkles, and tired faces are visible. There are Dimitro (piece commander), Viktor (coordinates officer), Oleg (ammunition handler), Anton (loader), and Taras (assistant). The team's average age, which would not be complete without Leo the cat (keeping the mice at bay), is around 40 years old.
The constant soundtrack is that of dozens of steel trumpets, like the one they operate, firing at Russian positions. "Sometimes we don't shoot all day. Other days we don't stop shooting. We have to be ready to respond at any moment," says Dimitro, the group's leader.
There is not much time for more as the radio crackles with new orders. They put on vests and helmets, traverse about 20 meters of underground trenches, and reach the cannon, covered by a dense camouflage net, its tube resting on the ground like the trunk of a fallen elephant. Their M777, nicknamed Lialia, like an old Soviet doll, can launch projectiles up to 35 kilometers away. "The problem is if you abuse that distance, you damage the tube," explains Olexander. "Now we are going to launch at about 15 kilometers, allowing us to preserve this cannon until it fires about 4,000 shots."
- Would you say it is more accurate than Soviet cannons?
- Yes, but it also depends a lot on the person operating it. Inside the head of a good gunner hides a mathematician, and there are many things to calculate: temperature, wind force, altitude... All of that influences. Here we have people who have hit a moving tank at 20 kilometers. It's like shooting into the future, you calculate where it will move, shoot at that point, and wait.
To avoid exposing the piece to spy drones, the entire process of assembly, firing, and disassembly must last a maximum of two minutes. They are trained for this. They select the ammunition, place it, and the commander writes on the projectile: "Dedicated to our infantry."
Everything happens quickly. The cannon rises moved by mechanical gears while Viktor adjusts the shot based on the target. When they have it, a shout is heard: "Armata!" (Cannon!) and the launcher pulls the rope, old-fashioned, like in pirate movies. At that moment, a shudder runs through the ground, lifting all the leaves and sand, reaching our bodies as a dry thunder, shaking and dwarfing us with the shockwave. Experiencing this detonation is only possible with hearing protectors or covering both ears at the moment of firing and opening the mouth to save the eardrums. Otherwise, say goodbye to your hearing. We ask the commander again:
- How do you endure these explosions?
- But this is nothing. Here behind is where you suffer the least. When we have to shoot further, it carries more explosive and sounds much louder. And if you were a few meters further away, then the detonation is indeed brutal.
After firing two more projectiles, each weighing about 50 kilos, they lower the tube again, as if Lialia were entering hibernation, and return to the shelter without wasting time. For us, there is the journey back, but night falls and with it, another opportunity to not stumble upon any swarm of drones. We set off again in a hurry and, after running a bit on the asphalt, which here has the typical rumble of roads worn down by the passage of armored vehicles with tracks, we reach the limit of the range of Russian drones, which grows day by day. "Now they reach here, but those that go by cable reach much further. Our only ally is the night," says our driver, and we leave the war behind.