At a crossroads, a few kilometers from the hottest front of the war, several groups of Ukrainian soldiers are on their way to the trenches or returning from combat. It is not difficult to identify them among all. Like the protagonists of the series they honor with their name, the Peaky Blinders have designed their own Gatsby-style caps with eight panels, but in multicam camouflage, and wear a patch with the image of Tommy Shelby, the leader of the criminal gang from the Small Heath neighborhood in the industrial city of Birmingham in the 1920s and 1930s.
We are in front of seven of their members, including the group's leader, the komandir Olexander Spitsyn, whose combat name is Zaliznyak, co-founder of this group of friends from the industrial city of Kharkiv (they knew each other before the war). When the invasion began, they all joined the fight together and have since remained united in their own combat unit, named by their brother Anton, who passed away in combat a few months ago, who was an English teacher and a fan of the series.
The Peaky Blinders have been fighting since the first day of the invasion. Over these three and a half years, they have become the most well-known and well-oiled drone unit in the country to terrorize the Russians from the air. Now, these pilots are the main target of enemy drones. The hunter becomes the prey.
- Well, we pray and have hope. And there is little more we can do except follow the rules. We know that if we do what needs to be done, there are no guarantees that we won't be killed, but there will be fewer chances.
The Peaky Blinders, unlike other famous drone pilots in Ukraine, such as the so-called Magyar Birds, were not expert gamers when they started using this cheap but revolutionary technology. They had to learn everything from scratch, including gaining skill with the controls and pilot goggles and understanding their technological capabilities to expand them every day. "We have many types of drones, many of them are the most modern we can acquire, but we will always need more, because the war does not stop," says the one nicknamed The Lawyer (revealing his profession before the war) and who is the group's sergeant major. Among their ranks, there are already pilots with over 400 confirmed Russian casualties, figures that surpass those of the Russian sniper Vasili Zaitsev, who killed 242 Germans in the Battle of Stalingrad.
- We are not obsessed with counting the Russians we kill, but the Ukrainians we save thanks to our work from the air. Of course, we have pilots who reach those figures, but we are proud to have preserved the lives of about 1,000 Ukrainian comrades.
- Have you changed your attack strategies with drones since you started operating them?
- It's an art. Sometimes we use several coordinated drones for a single attack. Sometimes of different types, each with a different mission, but that depends on the target.
To maintain motivation and competition among drone pilots, Ukraine has implemented a curious rewards system designed by the Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov. This system, called Army of Drones Bonus, aims to encourage rivalry among them and expedite access to advanced military technology. Military units accumulate points by providing verified evidence of enemy target elimination through drones.
This evidence, usually in the form of videos, is uploaded to a military network called Delta. Once validated, points are assigned according to the type of target. Six points for each enemy soldier eliminated. 20 points for damaging a tank. 40 points for destroying it and up to 50 points for eliminating a mobile rocket system, depending on its caliber. These points can be redeemed on the Brave1 Market platform, a kind of military Amazon, for equipment such as drones, electronic warfare systems, ground robots, and other technological devices. For example, the coveted kamikaze drone Baba Yaga costs around 43 points. Deputy, another member, assures that they are "delighted" with the points system.
They have had significant losses, such as the commander's own brother Anton, and new recruits, but the core of the unit remains the same, a group of friends from the neighborhood. They are all volunteers. There are no professional soldiers among their members. "The problem for us is for the new recruits to fit in with the family we already are. And that's not easy," admits the one who calls himself Partisan. "It is the komandir who has the final say in admitting or not admitting new recruits." In this, the unit differs from 99% of the rest of the Ukrainian army companies.
What is the connection between these Peaky Blinders and the original series? During the defense of the city of Vovchansk, near their hometown of Kharkiv, all the soldiers signed a cap and sent it to the actor Cillian Murphy, who plays Thomas Shelby in the series. Murphy received the gift and sent one to each member of the unit, but with his autograph. Their director, Steven Knight, has a close relationship with them and is preparing a visit to meet them personally.
In a war where drones are no longer manufactured, but printed with 3D printers near the front at hundreds of units per day, these soldiers have become indispensable. We are in the middle of a field, in plain sight of any drone, so after taking some photos, we retreat under cover. Throughout the interview, armed, they never stop looking at the sky, with their ears sharp to hear the propellers of enemy drones. As much as the blades of the Shelby brothers.