One life is enough for a drone: Elena Guseinova and photo of the week

Vyacheslav Ratynsky took this photo back in February. One of Ukraine's charitable foundations is donating FPV drones to the military, which people from all over Ukraine have been donating money for over several months. Two thousand FPV drones are laid out in long, thin black and white lines on the floor of a large pavilion. Between these lines, a Ukrainian soldier holds one of the drones in his hands, as if it were a toy. My friend, who serves at a drone operator training center, told me that FPV drones used to be “sports” drones and were only good for very expensive races. “Now we shoot at everything,” he says. He often talks about drones in the language of children's games: ‘our little drones,’ ‘my bumblebees,’ ”angry vagabonds.”

The FPV drones in Ratynsky's photograph stretch out in long lines of presence, of continuous internal time. And I remember my school parties in the 1990s. There were Dendy consoles connected to TVs and pirated cartridges of the game Battle City, which my friends and I simply called “Tanks.” My personal “tank” destroyed enemy tanks, defended headquarters, escaped from water, bushes, and ice, collecting bonus stars, clocks, and shields, destroying brick and concrete walls, and gaining more and more lives, because if the tank runs out of lives, the game is over. I ask my friend if he also played “tanks.” “Of course,” he says. The carefree language of our childhood comes to my throat and I ask, “How many lives does an FPV drone need?” And my friend explains to me that the “drone” has to hit an enemy target, and the enemy target has to be worth millions of dollars, and for that, the “drone” only needs one life. One life and a skilled operator. And may the operator live long and happily. “It's very simple,” says my friend. As simple as this photo of Ratynsky. As simple as counting money for another drone.

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Olena Huseynova is a Ukrainian writer, radio host, and radio producer. She has been working at Radio Culture (Suspilne) since 2016. She is currently the editor-in-chief of the radio theater and literary programs department. Since February 26, 2022, Olena has been working as a live host of a round-the-clock news radio marathon on Ukrainian Radio (Suspilne). She is the author of two poetry books, “Open Rider” (2012) and “Superheroes” (2016). She writes essays and short prose.‍

Vyacheslav Ratynsky is a Ukrainian reporter and documentary photographer. He was born in Zhytomyr and has lived and worked in Kyiv for the past nine years. He graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. He has been published in many Ukrainian publications (Ukrainska Pravda, Hromadske, Novoe Vremya, Focus, Forbes, Ukrainian Week, Reporters, and others), as well as in a number of foreign publications (Time, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, The New York Times, El Pais, Radio Freedom Europe, BBC, Reuters, Der Spiegel).

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