Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Russian launches hundreds of drones against Ukraine every week.
Kids are supposed to spend their afternoons worrying about homework or games.
But in some places, playtime carries terrifying risks.
One older brother in Ukraine recently had to make a split-second decision to save his siblings.
A dangerous sky
The Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne Chernihiv reported that a 12-year-old boy named Anatolii Prokhorenko faced a Russian fibre-optic FPV drone while playing outside in April.
The unmanned vehicle, controlled via a trailing cable, was heading toward where his four younger siblings were gathered.
Anatolii remembered advice from local soldiers. While helping troops chop firewood, they had taught him how to snap these specific drone cables.
“I saw that it started to turn. I crouched down, then looked—it was going up. I said, ‘That’s it, 15 seconds and I’ll cut [the fibre optic]!’ My nephew ran out and shouted, ‘Cut it!’ I pulled it and saw the drone start accelerating upwards because it had lost control and was beginning to fall. We were already bracing for an explosion. But it fell into bushes about 100–150 m away from us,” the boy told Suspilne Chernihiv.
Hundreds of drones a week
During more than four years of war in Ukraine, Russia has used drones to terrorize the civilian population.
On April 29, the Ukrainian Air Force reported a Russian assault involving 171 strike drones, including 120 jet-powered Shahed drones. According to the Air Force, 154 drones were neutralized.
On March 24, 2026, Russia launched the largest attack in a 24-hour period, when 948 drones targeted cities across Ukraine, the BBC reported at the time.
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russia has lost more than 262,000 UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) since the beginning of the invasion. It is unclear whether that number includes strike drones, which explode on impact.
Sources: Suspilne Chernihiv, BBC, Ukraine’s Air Force, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
