Hunted By Russian FPV Drones
By: Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine
Lupareve – Of the thousand souls that once populated this settlement before the war, very few remain today. The last burial mounds are still open, while others have been destroyed, as the Russian Armed Forces did not even spare the local cemetery.
The capital of the oblast’ it belongs to, Mykolaiv, is just over 20 km away, but from an equal distance in the opposite direction, the Russians have been shelling Lupareve for four years. Attentive readers will have noticed that death by FPV looms within that range, which is why the latest video report we released on this “La Ragione’s” YouTube channel ends on an open note we prefer not to show.
While we were filming, an FPV drone reached us. We managed to hear it before it was too late, and despite having no other shelter around us besides a small shack already eroded by the war, we managed to find cover.
Just yesterday, in the oblast’ from which we are writing, Russian drone operators caused around twenty casualties among the local civilian population. In the oblasts of Donetsk, Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv, and Kyiv – the areas most exposed to FPVs like the one we miraculously avoided – the trend is similarly severe and increasing.
Just a few days ago, we explained from those very regions that 96% of casualties, including those among Russian soldiers, are due to Ukrainian drone strikes. Increasingly precise, lethal, and deep-reaching, Russian strikes unfortunately also strike in the same way. With the huge difference that Russian drone operators intentionally target civilians: media workers, rescuers, evacuees, and volunteers are prime targets, which, as in our case, they pursue on sight.
So much so that all the recent UN/OHCHR data and independent reportsconfirm that since 2022, the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties (around 97% in 2025) have occurred in territory controlled by Kyiv, mainly caused by Russian long-range weapons such as drones and other missiles.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, over 15,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths have been documented, with peaks in 2025.
Since the start of this year, the Russian Federation has deployed approximately 700,000 kamikaze drones in the hottest kill zones, with a peaklast week of 67.000.
In March, Russian attacks increased in intensity by 40% compared to February, with a total of 255,900 munitions fired at Ukraine, resulting in at least 66 civilian deaths. According to UN data, over the past month, short-range drones have become the deadliest weapon for the Ukrainian civilian population.
As we explained in connection with the ceasefire violated by the Russian Federation during the alleged “Easter truce” and the more recent one on May 9th – which ended with 24 deaths (including three children) and 48 injuries in Kyiv alone – the Russian occupiers are using FPV drones to attack trucks, gas stations, freight and passenger rail convoys, buses, taxis, and other civilian vehicles, aiming to compromise Ukrainian logistics at every level.
For this reason, the country is strengthening its anti-drone facilities on key routes. At a rate of approximately 1 km per day, since the beginning of the year, Ukrainian technicians have successfully installed networks and other multi-layered passive defense systems on 371 km of roads in the eight aforementioned regions.
These estimates, from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, are extremely high considering the conditions in which those operators are forced to work.
What has haunted us is the type of threat that today makes many war reports impossible and any traditional approach obsolete.
And it wasn’t the only one, because as we were returning to safer areas than Lupareve, another FPV drone stalked us on an open stretch of road, only to be neutralized by the Ukrainian defenders.
Once they enter terminal guidance, those remotely operated drones have such low latency that evasive maneuvers are impossible.
Over the course of the day, another 50 to 55 long-range, high-explosive drones flew over the Kherson Oblast in broad daylight, coming under fire from the Ukrainian PPO. Such attacks are so frequent, however, that even private companies are now considering equipping themselves with remote-controlled machine gun turrets operated by trained operators.
If until recently the stated goal was to produce one million drones a year, that figure will soon be used in just one quarter.
Proof that times and warfare have changed.
In 1.543 days of war, we recorded over 250 videos from ground zero and wrote more than 1,500 articles.
We are doing our best to provide genuine, first-hand reports from zones where almost no press dares to go. This means living in a kill zone constantly. We take the risk, but without your invaluable support, our voices would remain unheard and silent. Without brave people sharing our articles from afar, they would remain unread. Our reports would go unseen, and our efforts would be lost. There’s still a lot of work to do here, as the people around us are also in no better situation.
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Thank you all, dear friends
被俄罗斯FPV无人机追击
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
翻译：旺财球球
乌克兰前线报道
卢帕列韦——战前这个定居点曾居住有上千余人，如今仅存寥寥数人。最后几座墓冢仍未封闭，有些则已被摧毁，俄罗斯武装部队甚至不放过当地的墓园。
（图：Alla与我在乌克兰卢帕列韦为本文报道，防御工事就在她前方——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
所属州首府尼古拉耶夫仅在20多公里之外，但在相反方向同样距离处，俄方已对卢帕列韦持续炮击四年之久。留心的读者会注意到，FPV致命打击的射程就是这个范围，这也是我们在“La Ragione”YouTube频道发布的最新视频报道以开放式结尾收场、不便展示全部内容的原因之一。
拍摄时，一架FPV无人机锁定了我们。我们侥幸在为时未晚前听见了它的声音，尽管周围除了一个早已被战争摧毁的小棚屋外别无他处可避，我们设法躲进其中。
（视频：Alla和我在乌克兰卢帕列韦拍摄的影像——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
就在昨天，在我们所在的州内，俄罗斯无人机操作员对当地平民造成约二十人死伤。在顿涅茨克、苏梅、哈尔科夫、第聂伯罗、第聂伯罗彼得罗夫斯克、扎波罗热、切尔尼戈夫和基辅等最易遭FPV袭击的州，局势同样严峻，且持续恶化。
（图：我在我们躲避的乌克兰掩体附近 ——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
几天前，我们就在那些地区解释过，包括俄军在内，96%的伤亡系乌克兰无人机打击所致。无人机正变得日益精准、致命且深入，很不幸的是，俄方的打击同样具有此特征。但有一个巨大区别：俄方无人机操作员蓄意以平民为目标：媒体记者、救援人员、撤离人员与志愿者成为首要攻击对象，正如在我们这次的情况，他们一旦发现我们，就锁定持续追击。
（图：通往乌克兰卢帕列韦这种小村落的道路，如今成了杀伤区——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
以致于所有近期的联合国/人权事务高级专员办公室数据与独立报告均证实，自2022年以来，绝大多数平民伤亡发生在基辅控制区（2025年约占97%），主要由俄方远程武器如无人机与其他导弹造成。
自俄全面入侵乌克兰以来，已有超过逾15,000名乌克兰平民死亡，2025年达峰值。
自今年以来，俄联邦已在最激烈的杀伤区投放约70万架自杀式无人机，上周单周峰值达67,000架。
3月，俄方攻击强度较2月增长40%，共向乌克兰发射255,900枚弹药，导致至少66名平民死亡。联合国数据显示，过去一个月内，短程无人机已成为针对乌克兰平民的最致命武器。
正如我们此前在报道俄方在所谓“复活节停火”以及近期5月9日停火期间的违规行为——仅基辅就造成24人死亡，包括3名儿童，另有48人受伤——中所分析的，俄占领者使用FPV无人机袭击卡车、加油站、货运与客运列车车队、公交、出租车及其他民用车辆，旨在从各个层面破坏乌克兰后勤体系。
（图：Alla与我在乌克兰卢帕列韦墓地录制影像——版权所有，@giorgioprov）
因此，乌克兰正在沿关键线路强化反无人机设施。自年初以来，乌方技术人员以约每天1公里的速度，已在上述八个地区的371公里道路上成功安装了网络及其他多层被动防御系统。
考虑到作业环境之艰苦，这些由乌克兰国防部提供的数字已十分惊人。
困扰我们的，是当下这种威胁类型使得许多战地报道无法实施，并使任何传统报道手段变得过时。
而这并非唯一一次；当我们从卢帕列韦撤离，返回相对安全区域途中，另一架FPV无人机在一段开阔路段追击我们，最终被乌克兰防空系统击落。
一旦进入终端制导，那些远程操控的无人机延迟极低，规避动作几乎不可能。
（音频：自豪地与大家分享我在美国资深分析师Mark McNamee主持的“正在书写的历史：乌克兰战争”最新一集中参与的环节）
当天还有50至55架远程高爆无人机在光天化日下飞越赫尔松州，遭到乌克兰防空火力拦截。然而此类袭击发生得如此频繁，以至于连私营公司也在考虑配备由训练有素操作者远程控制的机枪塔台。
若此前的目标是年产一百万架无人机，这一数量很快可能仅在一个季度内就被消耗完。
证明了时代与战争方式已然改变。
（图：我从一处处于杀伤区的乌克兰战壕报道 ——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
***
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