They’re a weapon synonymous with Russia’s war in Ukraine, and here the sky is full of them: Drones.
Tiny, kamikaze killing machines are zipping through the air in front of me.
But I’m not on the battlefield. I’m on a football pitch. And instead of being used to hunt targets, the drones are being raced.
I’ve come to a Russian sports festival in Samara. Drone racing is one of the main events.
It’s being held after dark in the city’s impressive football stadium, which was built for the 2018 World Cup.
The drones, and the various on-course obstacles, are lit up in luminous colours for the spectators to follow.
Pilots navigate via on-board cameras – the feed of which is projected on the big screen above.
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Irina, 14, is part of the victorious women’s team.
The schoolgirl only took up the sport two years ago and says she practices two hours every day.
When I ask why she likes it, she replies in broken English: “This has adrenaline and you can be fast.”
The Kremlin has certainly been quick when it comes to recognising the sport’s potential to boost Russia’s military capabilities.
In June, Vladimir Putin announced a new drone flying championship for children as young as seven, dubbed Pilots of the Future, that will begin next year.
But here in Samara, race organisers insist the sport is not a recruitment ground.
“Many people have a stereotype that as soon as they start working with drones, flying and learning to pilot them, and receive some kind of certificate proving their skills, they’ll be taken away to be drone pilots,” Ilya Galaev, president of the Russian Drone Racing Federation, said.
“But in reality, of course, that’s not true. Everything is voluntary.”
The war wasn’t voluntary for everyone competing here, though.
Across town at the ice rink, we meet Mikhail, who was mobilised to fight in 2022.
He’s now competing in a Para ice hockey tournament. All players have a physical disability. Like most others here, he lost a leg on the battlefield.
“In August 2023, I was wounded, I stepped on a mine. But I immediately realised that I won’t give up and will move on,” he said.
“For me, it was a kind of motivation to show other people that I didn’t become any worse than others who live a full life.”
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Para ice hockey is fast-paced. The players move around on specially designed sledges, seemingly unencumbered by their traumatic injuries.
Russia doesn’t publish the number of its wounded, but it’s no coincidence how the sport has become a lot more prominent since the war began.
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‘Special Military Operations’
Many of the teams competing here, like Gvardia from Moscow region, were only formed in the past three years, in response to the injuries soldiers were returning home with.
“Our team consists only of Special Military Operation participants who got injured,” Gvardia’s founder Mikhail Trifonov said.
“I visited hospitals, talked with the guys. And I still visit. I suggest they take up sport.
“It’s an integral part of the rehabilitation process, because after receiving such an injury, such a trauma, psychologically one thinks ‘what’s next’?
“But here you’re part of a team, you’re with your fellow soldiers.”
The tournament says a lot about how the war is presented in Russia.
Far from hiding veterans’ traumas, the Kremlin is showcasing them, portraying its wounded as the pinnacle of society.
Enlistment inspiration
The teams here are competing for the Heroes of Our Time Cup, and in the entrance hall to the ice rink, there are military recruitment leaflets urging people to sign up.
The authorities clearly hope the event will inspire others to enlist.
It also says a lot about what three and a half years of war have done to Russia. Wherever you go now, the consequences of the conflict are never far away.
