Drones sold at Walmart help keep Ukraine in the battle for Bakhmut
BAKHMUT, Ukraine — The Russian infantrymen slinked back and forth in twos and threes to a house in one of this embattled city's devastated neighborhoods, ferrying ammunition, an automatic grenade launcher and a heavy machine gun ahead of a planned attack.
Hidden in a high-rise, a pair of Ukrainian soldiers watched it all on a feed from the consumer drone they were piloting.
One of the pilots, whose military nickname is Liova, trained the camera on a pair of soldiers next to the house.
"I see two ... moving," said the other pilot, who calls himself Tezka, speaking into a chat server.
In a basement a few miles from the house, commanders from the 251st Battalion studied the drone feed. They barely seemed to notice the steady beat of incoming fire or the of a barrage of rockets — even when one landed close enough to shake the floor.
