“Two main roads run from Sloviansk, to Kharkiv and to Dnipro, and every day Russian drones attack all of them. Radio-electronic defense handles part of it, but we have no protection from optical drones. For us the best protection is to pray and go. … Who solves this will be Elon Musk. His main problem today is protection from optical drones.”
Preston Stewart · Policy · November 2026
Context
Asked whether logistics into Sloviansk have been sorted out, the officer says fiber-optic drones, which jamming can't stop, make the supply roads deadly. The remark about Musk is his own view of who might crack the problem.
Transcript
I think this story takes start from 2014 year. Then started this conflict on Donbass. And on start 2014 year, Slavyansk was occupied. And after several months was liberated. And on that times, this region is this defense area. So
it's been 10 years of building this, 12 years.
With every year from 2014, it was for more and more every year when we understand that we'll be war with Russia. With each year, this understand was better and better.
I was fortunate to be out there about a year ago, sir, and we drove into Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, and there were not a lot of roads in and out. It seems very challenging to get logistics out to you guys, but you're still doing it. Has that been a major challenge? Do you feel like that has been…
The road from Kharkov is to Slovyansk. So Operation Vivaldi takes better situation on this road. But on our road, there are two main roads from Slovyansk to Kharkov and to Dnipro, two main roads. And all roads every day attacks Russian drones, FPV drones or bigger drones. This situation is solved…
Hopefully there's a solution to that soon.
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