'It's a robot war' Fighting back while Moscow is raining death from the sky

Nataliya Petrovna pointed to a crater on the edge of a football field. Around it lay bits of twisted metal. From nearby came loud banging as residents fixed plywood to their damaged five-storey apartment block. "The last few days have been terrible," she said. "We could hear the drones buzzing over us. The one that exploded near the school opposite was a Russian Shahed. Maybe some kind of new type."

- Luke Harding

Petrovna lives in the eastern garrison city of Kramatorsk, in Donetsk province, about 15 miles from the frontline. That puts it just beyond the range of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, at least for now. But it is easily reachable by other kinds of enemy objects. They include air-dropped glide bombs, Grad rockets and unmanned kamikaze drones - now cruising the skies in overwhelming numbers.

Since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, the Kremlin has dramatically escalated its bombardment of Ukrainian cities, including Kramatorsk. In his meeting tomorrow with the US president in Alaska, Vladimir Putin is likely to demand that Ukraine hands Kramatorsk over to Moscow, together with other Ukrainian-controlled territory. He claims four Ukrainian regions as well as Crimea. Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has vowed not to give up land, saying the constitution forbids it.

Amid anxiety that the US will pressure Kyiv into an unjust peace deal, Russian troops have been pushing forward, trying to create facts on the ground. Earlier this week they reportedly broke through Ukrainian lines, advancing past the town of Dobropillya, north of the besieged city of Pokrovsk.

At the same time, Russia has launched a record number of aerial attacks. Over one week, from 4 to 10 August, the Russian military dropped more than 1,000 bombs and launched nearly 1,400 kamikaze drones against Ukraine. The current record is 728 drones and 13 missiles sent in a single night in July, most directed at the western city of Lutsk. By autumn, German experts predict Moscow could send 2,000 drones a day.