Cratered fields, charred armour

An image provided by a Ukrainian Volunteer Army drone reconnaissance unit showing Russian positions along the southern front in Ukraine;

THE images that a reconnaissance drone sent back to Ukrainian forces provided a vivid portrait of the Russian side of the war zone.

Damaged houses gave way to cratered fields on Ukraine’s southern steppe. There was burned-out armour in a scorched forest. A jagged Russian trench along a tree line had been blasted by American-supplied cluster munitions barely a week earlier, according to Lt Ashot Arutiunian, the commander of the unit that recorded the images.