An elite force has landed an unexpected counterpunch to Putin. Its use of technology has made the battlefield even deadlier
Maxim Tucker
April 3, 2026
The Times
The Russian soldier winds along a woodland path, unaware the minutes until the end of his life are being counted down. His thermal signature has given him away. In a sprawling subterranean complex more than a dozen miles away, his warm white outline marks him out on a grayscale screen. “Six minutes to target,” an officer calls out to “Trojan”, the chief of staff of 3rd Assault Battalion, Ukraine’s 82nd Air Assault Brigade. His men have launched a combat drone towards the enemy soldier and he watches its camera stream to one of the monitors in the battalion command centre.
Wood panels line the centre and adjacent operations rooms. But in the labyrinthine corridors, the deep, damp soil and severed tree roots are exposed. Engineers have carved a kitchen, single shower cubicle and dining room out of the earth. The smell of hot soup washes over that of sweat and unwashed bodies.
The 82nd is an elite paratrooper unit, part of the 8th Air Assault Corps, which has landed an unexpected counterpunch to President Putin’s spring offensive.
Two months ago they were dragged from heavy fighting in the Pokrovsk sector to stem a Russian tide sweeping forward at the town of Huliaipole, threatening to flank the city of Orikhiv and bypass Ukrainian defences along the Vovcha river.
In some places the Russians were moving as fast as 7km (4.3 miles) a day. A breakthrough would have threatened the strategic cities of Zaporizhzhia, home to Ukraine’s largest active steelworks, and Pavlohrad, where Ukraine produces rocket fuel for missiles. However, the paratroopers have not only held the Russians here on the border of the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions but driven them back as far as 12km (7.5 miles), despite being outnumbered five to one. “The secret to our success, first and foremost, is training personnel so that they are properly prepared, then preserving their lives,” says Major “Lion”, the 23-year-old battalion commander, as we wait for the drone to strike. “The second is maintaining secrecy, spreading rumours, misleading the enemy so that he does not know where you are, what you are doing or how you are doing it.”
In their counteroffensive, his infantry has used and improved infiltration tactics not dissimilar to those deployed by the Russians. They bypass positions then attack them with drones and, when possible, from the rear. They took advantage of a collapse in Russian communications after Space X introduced a new registration requirement for its Starlink devices over Ukraine, cutting off all those that had been smuggled into occupied territory.
The unit had relied on Russian officers, fearful of punishment, failing to report losing ground to their superiors. This allowed the paratroopers to attack from unexpected directions and from positions some Russian troops believed were held by their own units. “There are interceptions from radio-electronic intelligence showing the enemy’s co-ordination between its units has become much worse at all levels,” says Lion. “There have also been more frequent cases where the enemy kills itself. They have friendly small-arms fire because there is no co-ordination. Their drones are flying without a stream, without Starlinks, and their commanders cannot make timely decisions.”
Their efforts have been fêted by President Zelensky. “In the south of our country, over roughly the past six weeks, the armed forces carried out a number of important actions related to defence and, in some sectors, offensive operations,” he told reporters last month. “We believe they were quite successful — we restored control over roughly 400–435 sq km. I will say this very cautiously: everyone feels more positive than they did at the end of 2025.”
Zelensky said on Friday that the frontline situation was the “best it had been in the last 10 months”. He stated that in recent weeks Ukraine had liberated slightly more territory than it had lost. “The offensive they were planning for March was thwarted by the actions of our armed forces,” he said.
In an operation to kill a Russian soldier that The Times witnessed, the equipment deployed — and the soldiers’ willingness to expend ammunition — hinted at why some Ukrainian soldiers feel more tentatively optimistic now than they did last year.
A Linza combat drone flew towards the man, keeping him in its sights. It was created as part of a joint German-Ukrainian endeavour. AI-assisted and resistant to electronic warfare, it was produced under Zelensky’s “Build with Ukraine” initiative, which is allowing for production of Ukrainian weapons at industrial scale in European countries out of reach, for now, for Russian airstrikes.
A second, much larger Perun heavy bomber drone follows to destroy the Russian’s dugout. “How much longer until Perun reaches the target?” Trojan asks. “13 minutes,” comes the terse response.
The assault on the single soldier did not stop there. Munitions for short-range strikes no longer seem to be in short supply, after years as a problem for Ukraine’s war effort. “Artillery is about to arrive,” says Trojan. His prophecy is fulfilled moments later by four bursts of flame and smoke along the treeline.
In previous years, at times of ammunition shortages, gunners have been restricted from firing until they see a group of five or more advancing Russian soldiers. The situation appears to have improved now that Ukraine produces an increasing number of its own 155mm rounds and a Czech-led European initiative secured 1.8 million shells last year.
Ukrainian troops are killing Russians at a rapid rate and precision drone strikes are making the battlefield deadlier than ever. Over two months on the offensive, the 82nd brigade claims 1,100 kills, 30 wounded and three captured. Further east in the Donbas, the Third Army Corps claims
to have killed or wounded 6,000 Russians in four days as they poured forward trying to take the town of Lyman between March 17 and 20.
For the first time since the war began, western intelligence services believe, more Russian soldiers are dying than are being recruited. Russian losses in January exceeded recruitment by 8,618, according to Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces. In February, the American secretary of state Marco Rubio told the Munich Security Conference: “Russia is losing up to 8,000 troops a week — not wounded, dead.”
However, the Ukrainians are suffering a manpower shortage too. The Air Assault Corps was once an exclusive outfit made up entirely of highly motivated, professional contract soldiers, deemed fit to serve only after passing a rigorous recruitment test. Equipped with British Challenger 2 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and American Stryker eight-wheelers, they were in the thick of the action during the failed 2023 counteroffensive, the defence of Vovchansk during Russia’s 2024 Kharkiv offensive, the cross-border invasion of Russia’s Kursk region and the Donbas.
All that action has taken its toll. Lion reached the rank of major and took command of a full battalion only three years out of military academy. The rest of his battalion, he concedes, are men who have been called up.
Not far from the solitary Russian soldier, a three-man team of Ukrainian paratroopers has run into trouble. “Dolya, Dolya, come in. Dolya, Dolya, come in,” an officer shouts down the radio. There is no response. Dolya has been hit by a blast from a Russian strike drone.
Another call comes in. “What’s Dolya’s condition? Has help been provided to Dolya?” the officer asks. The other two paratroopers, who dispersed after the strike, will have to make their way back into the kill zone to get him out, knowing Russian drones are watching.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian strike drone is closing in on the Russian, who is scrambling back to his bunker after escaping the artillery bursts alive. The strike drone catches him as he goes, but only wounds him. “He ran, right? And he goes in there,” an officer comments. “He climbed into a concrete strongpoint.” The bomber drone drops an anti-tank mine, collapsing the top of the Russian bunker. Intelligence reveals the Russian soldier is not alone in the position and more heavy bombers are dispatched.
Dolya and his team are evacuated at dawn, and he makes it back to hospital alive but concussed, with shrapnel in his back and arms. Neither the Russian soldier, nor his comrades, will emerge alive.
Maxim Tucker was Kyiv correspondent for The Times between 2014 and 2017 and is now an editor on the foreign desk. He has returned to report from the frontlines of the war in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February. He has worked in the countries of the former Soviet Union for more than 14 years, including as a grantmaker for the Open Society Foundations, news editor for the Kyiv Post and as Amnesty International’s Campaigner on
Ukraine and the South Caucasus. He has also written for The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, Newsweek and Politico.