Meet the underground squad with the lives of countless citizens in their hands

"Follow me and be careful," says the commander, as he leads us down a narrow path in the dead of night.

The overgrown tract had once been occupied by the Russians, and there are landmines scattered on the side of the path.

But the men with us are more concerned about the threat from above.

Members of a unit in Ukraine's 3rd Assault Brigade, they run a covert operation from an underground cellar, tucked behind a ruined farmhouse.

And what they are doing in this old vegetable store is pushing the boundaries of war.

"This is the interceptor called Sting," says the commander, named Betsik, holding up a cylindrical device with four propellers.

"It's an FPV [first-person view] quad, it's very fast, it can go up to 280km. There's 600 grams of explosive packed in the cap."

Image: The Stin