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DRONE STRIKE
Sun team joins Ukraine’s heroes blitzing Russian troops with shop-bought drones to bust through Putin’s frontline
THE Sun joined a Ukraine army drone team calling in heavy artillery strikes on a frontline Russian fortress.
The troops had detected the Russian position in an abandoned riverside farmhouse.
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They watched from their eye-in-the-sky as troops built zig-zagged fortifications and wooden shelters to hide their boats.
Vitaliy, the drone pilot, alerted his pals on a US-made M777 Howitzer.
He said the mission was organised "soldier to soldier" without high-level command.
He said: "If we find a target we call our friends in the artillery and if they can help then they will.
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"This time they said we have 10 shots."
We watched as they launched their shop-bought drone from a bombed out office block.
The DJI Mavic 3 buzzed through an empty window before they retreated to an inside corridor sheltered from incoming fire.
The live feed showed Russian soldiers moving around the building before taking cover inside.
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Vitaliy said it was possible they might have heard the drone or they may have had electronic warfare systems that detected his aerial vehicle.
A text message from the gun crew announced they had fired the first shot.
Almost 45 seconds later we heard the blast thunder across the water.
The drone feed showed it had hit 600m off target.
Vitaliy's comrade Nazar plotted the impact site on a map on his military tablet.
Maksim, the third soldier in the team, relayed the coordinates to the gun crew via an encrypted messaging app.
They adjusted their aim and fired again.
The US-donated M777 Howitzer has a range of more than 13 miles.
The seventh shot landed exactly on target. The gunners blasted two more 155mm shells at the base.
There was one more to go when a message came through from the gun crew.
Nazar said: "The Russians were shooting back. Our guys on the gun had to take cover."
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Both sides use counter battery radars to detect where guns are operating in order to shoot back.
He added: ";It was a successful mission. We hit the target."
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