DISPATCH FROM UKRAINE

How Russia learnt from mistakes to frustrate Ukraine’s counteroffensive

Putin’s forces are holding the line in a slow, grinding war

Richard Spencer
The Times

Some people just get lucky. Andriy, a Ukrainian logistics officer, thought his time was up when a Russian suicide drone began stalking him around the battlefield.

He was unloading water for the troops from a vehicle when he saw it coming. He ducked down, and the drone whizzed past. But if he hoped he hadn’t been spotted he was wrong: the drone turned and came straight for him.

Five yards away or a bit more, it exploded, firing shrapnel over his head into the vehicle, skewering the bottles and spurting showers of water everywhere. “I think the only thing that saved me was that the sun obscured its vision,” Andriy said. More likely, the loitering FPV drone had been aiming for a nearby tank but