Meeting the Ukrainian recruits... BBC 

BBC

For the previous 72 hours, the menacing whirr above our heads has belonged to Russia’s suicide drones, passing over and then bearing down on their targets.

Now the buzz comes from a Ukrainian unmanned aircraft which has not been sent up to kill, but to relay footage from the training ground to commanders back at base.

We’ve been brought to a secret training location in the Chernihiv region where the latest army intake is being fast tracked to the battlefield in the renewed effort to blunt Moscow’s grinding advance.

In the hail of machine gun fire and instructors’ commands, the most striking aspect of the scene is the age of the new recruits. Most seem to be in their 40s and 50s

Among the grey-haired contingent, Rostyslav, whose wife and two children are waiting for him back home in the Odesa region.

A month ago he was a driver. Next month he could find himself fighting on Russian soil, with Ukraine vowing to hold on to the land it seized in the Kursk region during its lightning incursion a month ago.

“I think this is the right thing to do,” he says of the operation.

“Look how long they’ve been on our land. We’ve been suffering for so long, we have to do something. You can't just sit there while they are capturing our territory. What will we do then? Will we become their slaves?"

The training schedule we’re witnessing reflects the accelerated programme new army joiners are undergoing as Ukraine tries to deal with the sheer mass of men Russia is committing to the frontline.

The Ministry of Defence in London estimated there were 70,000 Russian casualties in Ukraine in May and June alone.