KHARKIV, UKRAINE — The Vampire drone gripped two precious pieces of cargo tightly — a bomb for the Russians and a delivery of still-warm KFC for the Ukrainians in the trench next to them.

Nikoletta Stoyanova, a Ukrainian photographer, watched as the six-armed behemoth took flight before soldiers hurried her into a basement. It was the dead of night in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine, near the besieged city of Kupyansk. The city had already traded hands twice — the Russians had captured the city in the first days of the war, and the Ukrainians liberated it six months later.

Over the last year, the world’s attention has been focused on the U.S. administration’s chaotic push for a peace deal in Ukraine . The high drama of diplomacy between Trump, Putin and Zelensky has stolen the sp

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