How To Kill 50 Russians On 1 Road In 1 Night

First, wait for the Russians to walk in a straight line without thermal camo—and then swarm them with bomber drones

The village of Novopavlivka, in eastern Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, lies roughly halfway between between two eastern hotspots: the ruins of Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast and the ruins of Huliaipole in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

Capturing Novopavlivka would bring the Russians a few miles closer to the city of Pavlohrad, a strategic hub for Ukrainian forces in Dnipropetrovsk. But that effort suffered a setback this week when Ukrainian bomber drones massacred an entire platoon of Russian infantry marching along a road apparently around five miles east of Novopavlivka.

Yes, the Kremlin can afford to lose 50 infantry. But it can’t afford to frequently lose 50 infantry. Russian manages to recruit enough fresh troops every month to make good its losses—30,000 or so—but only barely.

In fact, it’s possible that in recent weeks, Russian losses finally exceeded Russian recruitment. The Russian military may finally be shrinking the way the Ukrainian military has been shrinking for many months now.

One night apparently this week, a Russian unit—possibly the 27th Motor Rifle Division—reportedly tried to rotate forces along the front line near Novopavlivka, where Russian and Ukrainian troops have been taking turns attacking in recent days.

But the Russians took few of the usual precautions. They moved out in an orderly column, seemingly without wearing the thermal cloaks that might’ve masked their body heat and helped them blend in with the snowy landscape on Ukrainian drones’ infrared sensors.