A 3-man crew final month manually directed a drone to hit a cluster of antennas affixed to a tower in Polohy, a city occupied by Russian troops in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia area. The Russians had been utilizing the digital warfare system to spoil the work of Ukraine’s satellite-guided rockets.

The drone, manufactured from Styrofoam-like materials and costing $1,500, crashed into one of many antennas, detonating on contact. With the Russians’ jamming capability out of the blue disrupted, the Ukrainians then destroyed the tower with a strike from a U.S.-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS. The missile slammed into the construction with the kind of precision the Ukrainians have come to depend on of their 17-month struggle to expel the Russian occupiers. But had the drone not disabled one of many antennas first, the HIMARS rocket possible would have missed.

That kind of operation has turn into a trademark of particular forces models such because the Security Service of Ukraine’s “A,” or Alpha, division, which lately granted Washington Post journalists uncommon entry to their groups aiding common army brigades in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which now stretches throughout the nation’s southeast.

The nature of this struggle — fought principally at a distance with artillery and with the perimeters separated by densely mined fields — has compelled conventional particular operators to transition from covert ways they used extra typically earlier within the battle. Now, the combating is essentially accomplished with expertise, together with a big selection of self-detonating drones, whereas the expert troopers direct them from a secure distance — a preferable risk-to-reward ratio than sneaking behind Russian strains.

“What is the problem with going behind enemy lines? Total mining,” mentioned Oleh, the primary deputy director of the Alpha forces, who, like others on this story, requested to be recognized solely by his first title for safety causes. “It’s almost impossible to go somewhere secretly. You have to use some kind of demining equipment. This means you will already be identified.”

The work of the Alpha models provided a window into the early challenges in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, the place restricted advances have been hard-gained because the Russians have hunkered down in defenses ready over many months. Alpha fighters are educated to do all the pieces from firing an antitank missile to working a cellular air-defense system. Their snipers are considered the perfect in Ukraine. But all have turned their focus to drones currently as their targets grew to become tougher to succeed in.

The struggles of the Alpha fighters illustrate the steep challenges the Ukrainian army now faces at each degree — even amongst its most elite and efficient models — because it runs right into a Russian power that has ready and adjusted since its repeated missteps final fall when Ukraine recaptured giant swaths of territory within the Kharkiv and Kherson areas.

The jap entrance line, close to the besieged metropolis of Bakhmut, is much less mined than the extensive fields of the southern Zaporizhzhia area. But it’s nonetheless exhausting to get near the Russians. Recently, a crew of Oleh’s fighters had “a relatively shallow entry” into enemy turf close to there and 14 of them had been wounded, he mentioned.

“And with our resources, the loss of 14 people is a huge loss for us,” Oleh mentioned. “Yes, the enemy also suffers losses. But again, are our losses appropriate in these conditions and are they justified? I cannot use these 14 people in other operations in the near future.”

“The things that could be done a year and a half ago or a year ago, which were relatively safe and were done, now we need to assess the appropriateness,” he added.

Ukraine’s most important inside safety service, the SBU, created its Alpha division in 1994 with a concentrate on counterterrorism operations. That work stays, however extra has been added amid struggle.

The head of the SBU, Vasyl Maliuk, lately confirmed that its specialists had been accountable for attacking the Crimean Bridge final 12 months, a dramatic strike that briefly disrupted a key Russian provide route. The service has additionally been behind current sea drone strikes on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, in line with a Ukrainian official, who spoke on the situation of anonymity. The official was not licensed to debate the matter publicly.

When the Russians had been attempting to seize of Kyiv, Alpha’s most important process was defending the federal government and its leaders, together with President Volodymyr Zelensky, Oleh mentioned. But since final 12 months, he has spent most of his time in Zaporizhzhia, now overseeing Alpha models aiding in the primary focus of Ukraine’s counteroffensive — a bid to sever the land hall between Russia and Crimea.

Alpha is selective: To get in, you must go a health take a look at, a polygraph and a psychological examination. Efforts to widen recruiting through the struggle to type a separate assault unit yielded simply 80 new members, Oleh mentioned.

Like different particular forces, Alpha groups can typically have the identical capabilities as common army brigades, corresponding to working a howitzer. But their assignments are usually accomplished in small teams — supposed to inflict excessive enemy losses utilizing fewer sources.

The whole Alpha division has only one artillery gun, a 105mm British L119 that’s at present within the Zaporizhzhia area, utilized by a gaggle that calls itself “Tiger Woods,” as a result of its strikes are as correct because the American golfer. At a base close to the city of Orikhiv, the fighters have a satellite tv for pc picture of the Zaporizhzhia plains divided into squares. Often the combating, they mentioned, is going down within the skinny tree strains that separate every area. That’s the place the Russians have their posts and conceal their weapons.

Because of the dense community of mines, the Ukrainians are advancing, slowly, on foot. Here, south of Orikhiv, they’ve moved greater than two miles because the counteroffensive began in early June, the Alpha troopers mentioned.

Recently, they mentioned, a gaggle of troopers approached a Russian trench line they thought was deserted. As they began to stroll by way of it, they realized the ditch was booby-trapped with mines. All 5 Ukrainians had been injured by the blasts, and the Russians, who had been hiding close by, then began taking pictures, killing 4 of them. One wounded soldier escaped after different Ukrainian models began firing shells on the trench. They had watched the ambush of their comrades on a feed from a reconnaissance drone.

“Mines are everywhere, on the outskirts of the trenches,” mentioned Ilya, an officer in Alpha’s artillery unit. “First, it has to be cleared by artillery, then assault groups will go. If the assault group encounters any resistance, it’s back to the artillery, then back to the assault groups. Very slowly. But this is our reality.”

Rather than contending with minefields, the place Alpha has achieved best success is with loitering munitions, which vary in measurement and price. The three-man crew that destroyed the antenna tower focuses on targets associated to Russians’ jamming capability and communication infrastructure.

A second group working within the Zaporizhzhia area lately used a RAM II self-detonating drone made in Ukraine, which appears like a small grey airplane with a propeller within the again and might fly as much as 25 miles.

The Alpha division alone this 12 months has broken or destroyed greater than 322 tanks and armored automobiles, 48 artillery techniques and 65 particular tools objects, together with digital warfare, mentioned Oleh, the deputy director.

But “now it is more difficult,” mentioned Pasha, who heads the Alpha unit launching the RAM II drones.

Since final 12 months, the Russians have been utilizing a Pole-21 digital warfare system that suppresses all satellite tv for pc navigation over an space of as much as 150 sq. kilometers. That means “we fly by landmarks, we don’t have GPS here at all,” Pasha mentioned. And typically, simply when the drone may need a goal in sight, the feed will go darkish due to the Russians’ jamming.

It’s positioned a premium on concentrating on the digital warfare techniques themselves.

“We have very precise means,” Pasha mentioned. “The military prioritizes giving us a target to hit, and only then, if we can’t hit it, they transfer it to HIMARS or artillery — because artillery may not hit at all, and HIMARS also has nuances. If the electronic warfare is working, it may not hit the target either.”

In preparation for the Ukrainians’ counteroffensive, the Russians concentrated extra of their digital warfare techniques within the Zaporizhzhia area, Pasha mentioned. It’s made him yearn for a change of surroundings.

“We liked working in the Donetsk region better,” Pasha advised Oleh. “There are more targets there. There is more active work there, and there is less electronic warfare. … This area is the most fortified. And they are simply in a dead-end defense.”

“Then let’s work here for the last day, and then I’ll give an order, you’ll be transferred there,” Oleh advised him.

“No problem,” Pasha mentioned. “We need results — to destroy the enemy.”

An Alpha sniper group close to the jap metropolis Bakhmut mentioned the Russians are dug into their defenses there, too, making it tough to search out targets. The Russians “enter their positions in the morning and do not leave the dugout until night,” mentioned Felix, considered one of Alpha’s snipers.

His unit hasn’t had conventional sniper work since early May, he mentioned, specializing in reconnaissance within the meantime.

There had been extra alternatives final 12 months, he mentioned. A 12 months in the past, when the western financial institution of the Kherson area was nonetheless occupied, Felix and two others from his sniper unit obtained intelligence from locals in an occupied village a couple of Russian army commander. They studied the place cows walked by way of the fields, marking which areas appeared to not be mine. Then at evening, the group crossed the Inhulets River by foot, quietly getting into enemy-held territory and planting MON-90 mines on the highway close to his automotive earlier than retreating, he mentioned.

“He stood out because of his vehicle,” Felix mentioned. “Since he was the boss, the car had to be more beautiful and so on.”

The group then waited for the best alternative earlier than remotely detonating the explosives. “After he was neutralized, they had a big panic. They were a bit depressed,” Felix mentioned with fun.

He lamented that the identical sort of mission wouldn’t be potential now as a result of the Russians have extra intensely mined all the pieces forward of their outposts. “It’s a bit more of a gamble,” Felix mentioned.