NYT WORLD: The Infrared Hunt for Russian Troops in the Battle for Bakhmut
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Tyler Hicks
Section: World
Source: New York Times
Published Date: December 15, 2022 at 02:00AM
The job was straightforward: The small team of several men, led by an American known as Wolf, would be Ukraine’s eyes on their battle for Bakhmut that night, huddling in the Soviet-style apartment and staring at the white-and-black glow of infrared images as it tried to identify Russian positions.
In front of them was a panoramic view of Bakhmut, a city in Ukraine’s east, mostly without power and devastated by six months of concerted shelling. Russian artillery strikes in the distance sent white flashes into the sky under a blood red moon. Rockets arced on the horizon.
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Tyler Hicks
Section: World
Source: New York Times
Published Date: December 15, 2022 at 02:00AM
On a frigid December night, The New York Times accompanied members of a surveillance team for the Ukrainian Army as they used a thermal sight to find enemy positions miles away.
BAKHMUT, Ukraine — Wind howled through leafless trees and through the windows of the blown-out apartment building as the surveillance team marched up flights of stairs covered with broken glass. The cold numbed their fingers as they set up their equipment: a laptop-size thermal imaging sight, its tripod and a Starlink satellite dish and battery.The job was straightforward: The small team of several men, led by an American known as Wolf, would be Ukraine’s eyes on their battle for Bakhmut that night, huddling in the Soviet-style apartment and staring at the white-and-black glow of infrared images as it tried to identify Russian positions.
In front of them was a panoramic view of Bakhmut, a city in Ukraine’s east, mostly without power and devastated by six months of concerted shelling. Russian artillery strikes in the distance sent white flashes into the sky under a blood red moon. Rockets arced on the horizon.
What unfolded over the next half-dozen hours was a routine but essential part of the daily rhythm of the war — part drudgery and part urgent calculation as the team ascertained the coordinates for enemy positions, relaying them to the Ukrainian artillery battery miles away.
This type of mission, observed over the course of two days this month by reporters for The New York Times, was a window into how the war is being fought — a battle that is relentlessly violent but also technically sophisticated.
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