For 25 minutes, the drone flies over the estuary of the Dnieper River, its high-definition camera pointed at the bank occupied by the Russians.
Squatting in the thicket, Oleksiï and Mykola — their names have been changed to protect their identities — observe the images on the screen of their radio control.
The mission is dangerous: the estuary in this southern part of the Mykolaiv region is 10 km wide, but they are within range of Russian artillery fire.
And the Russian troops can locate the place from where their Chinese drone, a civilian model at 15,000 euros, is controlled. The two men have already found themselves under fire several times.
This time, the operation went smoothly. A few trucks and new fortified positions were spotted. Serguiï and Oleksiï briefly share their discoveries with the soldiers of the advanced post where they are, then slip away in fourth gear.
– Undercover agents –
They need a big screen for detailed analysis, locating possible targets and coordinating with the military.
Despite their immaculate uniforms and Western weapons, Sergiï and Oleksiï are members of the Ukrainian resistance.
With a gentle smile, Oleksiï says he got involved after discovering the massacres committed in Boutcha, in the suburbs of kyiv. Until then, he managed the family business in kyiv. Mykola, the chubby face, worked in tourism.
It is difficult to disentangle the tangle of their relations with the army. “We operate horizontally,” explains Oleksiï, once safe at “a friend’s” from where he will analyze his images.
“In theory, I should have gone to the army headquarters in Mykolaiv to show the images. But we know that it will be dealt with faster by ourselves,” he said.
Mykolaiv is the first major city west of Kherson, itself occupied by the Russians and where the Ukrainian army announced on Monday that it had launched a counter-offensive. Mykolaiv became the capital of the Ukrainian resistance movement in the south.
In an anonymous building, Oleksiï presents Oleg, in his fifties, who coordinates this movement on which he agrees to lift a part of the veil.
“It’s not one person or two. It’s separate cells and thousands of people,” he said, referring to his “agents” infiltrated in the occupied territories.
Almost all of them are civilians. Their primary mission: to follow the movements of Russian troops.
“The counter-offensive is partly based on this data (…) We know where their command centers are, where they gather, where they deliver weapons, what are the main transport routes”, explains this man, face masked by a balaclava.
“This morning, I spoke to a guy who reported that 100 vehicles were gathering in the same place (…) This man is not afraid of anything”, he continues.
– “Very effective” –
Roman Kostenko, former soldier, deputy and secretary of the Defense Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament, confirms: “the resistance movement was very effective”.
“We take information from satellites and drones, but we also need people to confirm the location of the targets,” he told AFP.
For several weeks, the Kherson region has been rocked by explosions and attacks targeting Russian military infrastructure. Almost every day, targeted killings take place.
On Monday, a Russian occupation official was shot and killed there.
Who is committing these murders? According to a Ukrainian officer linked to the resistance, “some civilians are ready, we have provided them with weapons”.
Among them, former members of the territorial defense brigades, trained in January by the Ukrainian special forces and who “received Kalashnikovs”.
But Moscow’s control over the region is growing.
Several sources told AFP of cases of torture of civilians, sometimes simply for having demonstrated against the Russian presence. AFP was unable to verify this information.
Vadym, who claims he was an “ordinary man” before the war, joined the resistance to “collect information, establish arms caches, deliver arms to people who were ready”.
It tells the story of two Home Defense personnel whose cache had been discovered. “They killed one and I don’t know what happened to the other,” he said.
To shelter his family, he ended up leaving the area, only getting out thanks to a $200 bribe dropped at a roadblock. For the moment, out of the question for him to return.
“The Russians can always say they will catch us, the resistance is stronger. We are more numerous, we are the people,” he says.
