The Washington Post published a large article about Mykolaiv drone hunters. While Ukraine is waiting for modern air defense equipment from its allies to combat large missiles and compact drones, the main task of protecting Ukrainian cities and infrastructure facilities from Iranian Shahed-136 falls precisely on these mobile groups of up to six people each. Now they are more active in the south, from where the Russians mostly launch kamikaze drones. And precisely at night, because the vast majority of Shaheds that Russia launches during the day, the Ukrainians have already learned to shoot down easily. The most common weapons of "hunters" are submachine guns. As soon as it becomes known about the launch, the movement of the drone is visible on the fightersʼ tablets. They take pre-equipped positions, placed so that the least number of civilians are affected by the shots ― and start shooting into the sky. It is even beautiful, the correspondent of the publication admits, when thousands of small flashes are visible in the sky. The fire is sometimes so intense that itʼs difficult to determine which mobile group shot down the drone. More importantly, however, most are shot down. Now the use of Shahed-136 by the Russians is less active: according to British intelligence, the Kremlin has almost run out of them. However, there is already an agreement on the next deliveries, as well as on the construction of a factory for the production of drones in Russia. And after all, any country can be under similar attacks, because the use of cheap kamikaze drones has shown its effectiveness. Therefore, it is important to help Ukraine in the fight against them, while simultaneously improving the appropriate means of air defense, writes the publication with reference to the Ukrainian military.
And the publication The Hill, popular in American power circles, published a column by Brian Clark, director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology and a senior researcher at the Hudson Institute Timothy Walton, about how the United States can help Ukraine in the fight against drones and missiles and why it is important to do it right now. Their last argument is simple: the drones and cruise missiles that strike critical Ukrainian infrastructure are now the main enemies of Ukrainians. The ground forces of the Russians have shown their inefficiency ― even after a large-scale mobilization, the situation at the front is developing negatively for the Kremlin. But they can disable the Ukrainian energy system, as well as gas supply networks or water treatment plants. Whereas the US has many anti-aircraft defenses that would be effective against such targets and that the Pentagon is preparing to write off due to their age. In particular, we are talking about AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM interceptor missiles, of which there are hundreds in the warehouses of the American military. The MQ-1 and MQ-9 drones are also being prepared for decommissioning ― and they could also benefit Ukraine in its fight against missile attacks. "Yes, Ukrainians have learned to shoot down 75-80% of launched drones and missiles. This is an excellent indicator, ― write the authors of the column. ― However, in the case of air defense, anything less than 100% is not enough. The enemy still deals damage, and itʼs still substantial. Therefore, we need to help Ukrainians as soon as possible and with everything we can."
Parallels between the Holodomor and the current war are drawn by the American edition of NPR. The publicationʼs journalist visited the Museum of the Holodomor, which now operates on generators due to the power outage. However, the exhibition is open, hundreds of books about the artificial famine organized by Moscow are available for reading and research ― and from them modern Ukrainians sometimes learn for the first time about their relatives who died during the Great Famine, the publication writes. The Ukrainian leadership also compares the current war with the events of 1932-1933. Famine was preceded by war ― then they tried to destroy the Ukrainiansʼ ability to resist with weapons. When it failed, they chose hunger as a tool. Now, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky assures, Russia is terrorizing the whole world with hunger, blocking the export of Ukrainian grain. If Putin is not stopped now, he will become the Stalin of the 21st century, NPR quotes the president. The correspondent of the publication spoke with the visitors of the museum: many of them have losses in this war as well. The grandmother of 44-year-old Roman Vashchenko said that she survived in the village blocked by the Bolsheviks only because she had a cow. Many of her relatives were less fortunate. Now Vashchenkoʼs sister and her husband were killed by the Russians, and two children were left as orphans. Another visitor to the museum, 37-year-old Iryna Kopalyova, had a grandfather who survived the Holodomor only because his father was a miner and brought home a hundred grams of bread every day. Now Irynaʼs upheavals are mostly worldview. Hearing the first explosions in February, her six-year-old daughter immediately understood that Russia had attacked. And she asked: "Mom, should I speak Russian now?"