Commenting on the video, one Reddit user said it was “the stuff of nightmares,” adding: “Your last moments are minutes long and the entire time you’re scared sh**less.”
A new video from the front lines of the war in Ukraine grimly demonstrates the terror soldiers face from new technology and ever-more ingenious methods of inflicting death on the modern battlefield.
Posted on the Telegram account of Ukrainian social activist and lawyer, Serhii Sternenko, the clip shows a Ukrainian drone hunting a Russian soldier in a protracted pursuit.
Footage from two drones has been spliced together – one from the hunter and another further away giving a panoramic view of the chase.
The soldier, aware the drone is chasing him, runs through a landscape pockmarked with holes from artillery and other explosives, weaving through trees in an attempt to lose his pursuer.
At one stage he takes out a pistol and attempts to shoot the drone down but without success.
The clip was posted to Reddit where many commentators highlighted the terror that drones must cause for soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
One person wrote: “New battlefield fear unlocked f**k I can’t imagine how terrifying it is to be chased by a f**kin drone.”
Another wrote: “This is honestly stuff of nightmares. Literally your last moments are minutes long and the entire time you’re scared sh**less.”
It’s not clear exactly when or where the footage was filmed but Ukraine has had significant successes with drones in recent days, specifically in fighting off Russia’s ongoing but, currently, disastrous attempt to take the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka.
Civilian drones converted by volunteers to deliver explosives have, over the past week, scored what may be the largest number of kills against Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers since the war in Ukraine began.
Accumulated counts of Russian armored vehicles that have been confirmed to have been knocked out, burnt, or otherwise put out of action by modified non-military drones totaled 428 pieces of Russian army heavy equipment, including 75 tanks, 88 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, and 163 artillery pieces.
