Ukrainian drone operator says there are so many drones in the war that 'nobody knows how to advance'

• A Ukrainian drone operator said the skies over Kharkiv are swamped with drones.
• There are so many of them that "nobody knows how to advance," Gleb Molchanov told The Guardian.

A Ukrainian drone operator said there are so many drones over parts of Ukraine right now that neither Russian nor Ukrainian soldiers know how to move forward.

Gleb Molchanov, who is fighting close to the city of Kupiansk in Kharkiv, told The Guardian that "nobody really knows how to advance right now."

According to Molchanov, the widespread deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles by Russia and Ukraine has rendered conventional NATO policies "pretty much obsolete."

In fact, he told the outlet that making any military breakthroughs was "almost impossible in an era of cheap and lethally accurate drones."

"Everything gets smashed up by drones and artillery," he said.

But Molchanov said that Russian forces had achieved some tactical success in Synkivka, a nearby city, using "projectiles," per the outlet.

Russian troops carried out 19 missile and drone strikes against civilian targets in the Kharkiv region over the past week, the Institute for the Study of War reported on Wednesday, citing Ukraine's armed forces.

The latest included Russian S-300 missiles that hit civilian targets, the ISW said on Thursday, citing Kharkiv's Specialized Service's distribution of operational information.

The situation in the area is so dire that bodies are lying in trenches and frozen hollows, as well as in burned-out vehicles, according to video images captured by Molchanov and shown to the Guardian.

"It's really fucked up down there," he said.

Russia has been ramping up its offensive operations on the front lines, likely trying to take advantage of the "freezing ground condition" to move armored vehicles, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Sunday.

But Russia's attacks are leading to huge losses to its military vehicles and personnel, the UK MOD reported at the time, citing data from the Ukrainian General Staff.

A Ukrainian sniper who goes by the call sign "Bess" made a similar assessment to CNN on Tuesday, saying Russia's "meat assaults" in eastern Ukraine are just leaving frozen bodies in their wake.

"Nobody evacuates them; nobody takes them away," he told the outlet. "It feels like people don't have a specific task; they just go and die."