“We’ll be home by the end of October, I’m sure of that,” said Galina Lugovaya, a Ukrainian official who was forced to flee Kherson after Russian soldiers burned down her home in March. “Our city is and will always be a part of Ukraine.” Back then, Lugovaya wasn’t the only one brimming with optimism. In late August, as Kyiv announced that the battle to retake the strategically important city had begun, an adviser to President Zelensky told Russian troops in the area to “retreat, surrender or be destroyed.” Since the war in Ukraine began, the EDM4S (electronic drone mitigation system) has been a key weapon for use against Russian drones. The weapon, held here by a Ukrainian soldier, is an electromagnetic pulse weapon that operates like a standard infantry rifle. By jamming communication signals, it forces the drones to either crash, return to base, or make an emergency landing BULENT KILIC/AFP/GETTY IMAGES These days, despite recovering a lane
