Kyiv, Ukraine – Swarms of Russian kamikaze drones broke through Ukrainian air defence fire early on Tuesday, screeching and shrilling over Kyiv in one of the largest wartime attacks. Oleksandra Yaremchuk, who lives in the Ukrainian capital, said the hours-long sound of two or perhaps three drones above her house felt new and alarming. "This horrible buzz is the sound of death, it makes you feel helpless and panicky," the 38-year-old bank clerk told Al Jazeera, describing her sleepless night in the northern district of Obolon. "This time I heard it in stereo and in Dolby surround," she quipped. Back in 2022, she crisscrossed duct tape over her apartment's windows to avoid being hit by glass shards and spent most of the night in a shaky chair in her hallway.

"I lost count after 100," the 44-year-old, camouflage-clad instructor told Al Jazeera while observing three cadets of his drone flight school pilot their buzzing aircraft over a withering meadow just outside Kyiv. Sitting at a plastic table littered with tools and batteries, the cadets with their joysticks and goggle cameras looked geeky and harmless. During their Saturday morning drill, each of them took turns flying a drone whose camera allows first-person views of the flight. Time after time after time, the cadets learned how to manoeuvre their drones by flying them through two loops stuck into the wet ground. The drones often fell with a whiz after touching a loop or a bush, losing a red plastic propeller or a leg that had to be found in the wet grass and reattached.