DRUZHKIVKA, Ukraine—On the eastern front here, Russia is saddling up a mainstay of battlefields from earlier centuries to counter Ukraine’s drone army: horses and donkeys.
While horses and donkeys are far from a centerpiece of Russian operations, Moscow’s dalliance is indicative of the ways in which a high-tech war is requiring creative uses of old-school combat methods, from trenches to motorbikes.
Ukrainian Army Sgt. Ihor Vizirenko, who has fought against drones, armored vehicles and tanks in one of this war’s most brutal spots, first saw Russians on horses in drone footage.
“The Russians are quite creative,” Vizirenko remembers thinking when he first saw the animals.
Horses in combat date to around 1500 B.C., when they were used to pull chariots, according to the American Museum of Natural History. They later became a military linchpin for transport and cavalry charges. Many Ukrainians are proud of their country’s Cossack heritage, a seminomadic people famed for their equestrian skills on the battlefield. By the end of World War I, though, horses and donkeys were largely replaced by vehicles.
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While horses and donkeys are far from a centerpiece of Russian operations, Moscow’s dalliance is indicative of the ways in which a high-tech war is requiring creative uses of old-school combat methods, from trenches to motorbikes.
Ukrainian Army Sgt. Ihor Vizirenko, who has fought against drones, armored vehicles and tanks in one of this war’s most brutal spots, first saw Russians on horses in drone footage.
“The Russians are quite creative,” Vizirenko remembers thinking when he first saw the animals.
Horses in combat date to around 1500 B.C., when they were used to pull chariots, according to the American Museum of Natural History. They later became a military linchpin for transport and cavalry charges. Many Ukrainians are proud of their country’s Cossack heritage, a seminomadic people famed for their equestrian skills on the battlefield. By the end of World War I, though, horses and donkeys were largely replaced by vehicles.
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