The Ukraine war has been going on for over two years now, and drone pilot Andriy has witnessed the horrors of war firsthand. He has used his graphic pencil to draw the monsters that he has seen, and that have been his reality for the past two years. One of his most haunting drawings depicts the agony of a soldier that Andriy watched for hours through his drone, before realizing he knew the man very well. The sketch portrays a wounded Ukrainian soldier, lying on the floor amongst ruins, surrounded by four corpses, and raising a hand in a call for help. He is gazing, face turned to the sky, toward the center of the drawing. It feels as if he is staring at the viewer observing him through the drone’s camera. Ghosts rise between the ruins behind him, with the word “WATER” written over and over on his right. “A modest little drawing in a sketchbook, but there’s a story behind it. It’s exactly what I saw with my own eyes,” he said. The scene took place during the battle for Klishchiivka last summer, a village near Bakhmut that Russia seized in May 2023 after months of fighting. As he watched through his drone’s camera, Andriy had no idea that the agonising soldier was a close friend with the call-sign Donbas. Both volunteered in the southern city of Odesa and fought side by side in the same brigade, including in Avdiivka, where Andriy manned a Browning heavy machine gun. They were then transferred to the 22nd brigade where Andriy became a drone pilot. “I had no idea this was ‘Donbas’. I only saw a man, alive, barely moving his hand in the direction of the drone. He was lying on a pile of broken bricks,” he said. “We kept an eye on him all day.” Back to base after the long shift, Andriy learned the soldier’s identity. He was told that Donbas had led an assault with a small group of fighters when a shell fell nearby. “They were unlucky,” Andriy said. ‘Just a sip’ Donbas was the only one to survive the immediate strike, but his legs were broken. He crawled a bit under a scorching sun until he reached a radio. “He repeated only one word: ‘water, water, water…’. People kept hearing him until his signal went off,” he said, citing radio operators. “He could barely breathe toward the end… It was a terrible death,” Andriy said. First stunned by the news, Andriy then sat down on his bed to draw. The horrors he has witnessed have not deterred him. He said he was fighting “for the survival of Ukraine as a nation”. “I realised that we are an outpost between Europe and a horde of cannibals.”
Drone Pilot’s Haunting Drawings Depict the Agony of Ukraine War
