C ARTEL AND HIS men are moving. Today his artillery covers part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhia front, and he controls his guns from a house 8km from the line of contact. His team, from the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, monitors the war-scarred farmland here with surveillance drones, and Cartel orders strikes when a target is identified. Until January they were billeted closer to the front line, but enemy artillery forced him to move deeper into Ukrainian-held territory. Now enemy drone saturation has expanded the kill zone, so “we are going underground,” Cartel says. Their bunker will be ready by the middle of August.

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