Volunteers and Vintage Weapons Bolster Kyiv's Defense Against Drone Attacks

Dressed in khaki uniforms, Ukrainian volunteers relaxed on a concrete terrace as darkness enveloped the nearby fields. The faint sound of music from a phone blended with bursts of laughter, offering a brief moment of calm before what was anticipated to be an intense night.

These volunteers are part of numerous civilian air defense units protecting Kyiv’s airspace. Their mission: to intercept incoming Russian drones using vintage machine guns provided by the Ukrainian Army. Every night, this diverse group—comprising university professors, construction workers, and salespeople—stays alert at their base in Pereiaslav, a town approximately 50 miles southeast of Kyiv, awaiting orders to mobilize.

At 11:35 p.m., Mykhailo’s phone rang. After answering, he called out, “Let’s move!”

The pursuit began.

Mykhailo and his two comrades jumped into a gray pickup truck parked near the terrace and sped along narrow country roads. Moments later, they stopped beside an open field and quickly disembarked. They set up three tripods: two equipped with machine guns and one with night-vision binoculars and a laser pointer.

For security reasons, Mykhailo, like other crew members, requested to be identified by his first name only. He glanced at a tablet resting on the pickup’s hood, which displayed a live map of Ukraine with clusters of red triangles representing incoming Russian attack drones several dozen miles away.

“Three are approaching,” Mykhailo, a trade union representative by profession, said calmly. “Let’s hold our positions.”

As Russia escalates its drone offensive against Ukraine, volunteer teams like the one in Pereiaslav endure long, sleepless nights to defend their homeland. On the night of this deployment, Russia launched a record 472 drones and decoys targeting Ukraine. Days later, another massive wave of more than 400 drones and decoys, alongside nearly 40 cruise missiles and six ballistic missiles, struck towns and cities across the country, marking one of the largest attacks since the conflict began, according to Ukrainian military reports.