Radio Chatter Gave Away Russia's Hidden Tanks
Ukrainian drone operators pinpointed hidden armor
A pair of Russian field armies aim to march on the eastern city Sloviansk from the east
A Ukrainian field army and its drones, dug in around the town of Lyman, stand in their way
The Ukrainian drone operators are trying to defeat the coming assault before it even begins—by striking Russian vehicles in their dugouts
Vehicles are hard to detect while sheltering underground, so the Ukrainians are locating the Russians by tracing their radio chatter
If the tactic works at scale, it could help defend Ukraine’s last major free cities in Donetsk Oblast
The Russian 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies have their sights set on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two major free cities in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.
After spending much of 2025 capturing Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, 50 km southwest of Kramatorsk, the Russians have an obvious—albeit difficult—south-to-north path toward the Kramatorsk-Sloviansk conglomeration.
But they’re aiming to open a west-to-east path, too—by advancing through the town of Lyman, crossing the Siverskyi Donets River and rolling along the T0514 into Sloviansk, 15 km from Lyman.
The Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps is determined to stop them. And it’s not waiting for the Russians to leave their underground dugouts and launch their assault on Lyman and the Ukrainians’ Siverskyi Donets bridgehead.
In recent weeks, a drone team working with the 3rd Army Corps found and targeted four Russian tanks and seven Russian infantry fighting vehicles in their dugouts. “We know that Russians planned to attack our positions with IFVs,” drone operator Kriegsforscher reported.
So Kriegsforscher and his team have been “trying to destroy Russian IFVs and tanks in their shelters,” blunting the coming Russian assault before it can begin.
