Ukraine’s army has dug a six-kilometer tunnel to move beneath the drones. Its military engineers have built the underground passage between two settlements in Donetsk Oblast to carry troops, motorbikes and quad bikes, ammunition and supplies, Colonel Dmytro Pishko of the Air Assault Forces Command told Ukrinform.

Drones and constant surveillance have turned the surface into what soldiers describe as a roughly 30-kilometer “death zone", where moving in the open can draw a strike within minutes. Ukraine and Russia have pushed troops, vehicles, and supply lines below ground in response, hiding armor in bunkers.

A six-kilometer underground road

“Another achievement of our engineering ingenuity was an underground tunnel almost six kilometers long, which was set up between two settlements in Donetsk Oblast,” Pishko said.

The engineering structure ensures uninterrupted, concealed movement of personnel, motor vehicles, and quad bikes, the delivery of provisions and ammunition, as well as medical evacuation. All of this allows various units to successfully carry out combat tasks.

The passage keeps men and machines off roads that Russian drones watch around the clock, turning a deadly run across open ground into a walk out of sight.

When a blown bridge meant a ferry

Ukrainian engineers have improvised below and around the water before. In 2023, after Russia destroyed a car bridge toward Lyman and the detour ate up time the wounded did not have, the 81st Separate Airmobile Brigade spent a whole winter using a PTS-2 amphibious transporter for medical evacuation, Pishko recalled.

The road bridge toward Lyman in Donetsk Oblast was blown up, and the detour took a lot of time. Instead, with the PTS-2 floating transporter, Ukrainian defenders gained 30 to 40 minutes. For the wounded, that is very significant.

“That winter the guys made 86 runs this way,” he said.

Ukraine took the tunnel fight to Russia

The underground turn has gone on the offensive, too. Last month, on the Kupiansk axis in Kharkiv Oblast, the Khartiia Corps said its forces advanced more than 15 kilometers through underground utility tunnels into the Russian rear in an operation it called Veles.

The operation came after Russian troops had repeatedly crawled through gas pipelines to slip behind Ukrainian lines around the city. Ukraine, the corps said, studied the tactic and went underground itself.

Ukraine’s Air Assault Forces have set up an underground tunnel between two settlements in Donetsk Oblast, Colonel Dmytro Pishko, head of the Support Forces Directorate at the Air Assault Forces Command, told Ukrinform in an interview published on 3 November.

Drones have made the roads near the front deadly, and the underground war has so far been mostly about infiltration. Russian assault groups crawled through a gas pipeline into Sumy Oblast almost daily, Ukraine’s 71st Air Assault Brigade said, and it stopped every recorded attempt. In October, Ukraine said it had answered by advancing more than 15 km underground near Kupiansk. The Donetsk tunnel is a different use of the idea: a standing supply line rather than a route for sneaking assault troops behind enemy lines, disclosed on Ukraine’s Engineering Troops Day.

Pishko does not name the settlements or say how deep the tunnel runs

Pishko called the tunnel, almost 6 km long, “another achievement of our engineering ingenuity,” saying it allows “uninterrupted and camouflaged” movement and carries deliveries of food and ammunition.

Meanwhile, Russia has kept using pipes of its own, including one into Kupiansk that Ukraine says became an escape route. Asked about Russia’s own defensive lines, Pishko said its army “knows how to dig, loves it, and does it constantly.”

Nets stop the first drone but not the second

By early June, Ukraine had covered 822 km of frontline roads with anti-drone nets and other protection built since January. Pishko said such nets work only if they are maintained. A net withstands the first drone, but a second can fly through the hole, so dedicated units patrol and repair them daily.

“Closer to the front line, the most reliable protection is to dig as deep underground as possible,” Pishko said.

Open trenches, he said, are a thing of the past.

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A squad leader shot down two drones at an underground worksite

Even so, the work underground is not safe. Russian forces tried to attack one group with two FPV drones while it was setting up an underground tunnel, and squad leader Ivan Chokha shot down both, Pishko said.