We unleash Grad missiles at Russian troops from a pick-up truck. Our mission can final ten minutes, max. On the eleventh, the drones will discover us and that will likely be that… Richard Pendlebury and photographer Jamie Wiseman report from Ukraine’s Pokrovsk entrance

We’re in a secret workshop near the critical frontline city of Pokrovsk. Here, hundreds of Grad rockets are being prepared for use by the embattled and under-resourced Ukrainian army a little up the road.

Some of the ammunition was locally produced, the rest ‘battlefield trophies’ – captured from the Russians. But the most striking detail is where these artillery rockets were manufactured. What lies around us in this nondescript shed is hard evidence of the globalisation of the Ukraine conflict, if not a slide towards a full-blown Third World War.

A stack of missiles with red stripes around the warheads were made in Russia, we are told. Another smaller stockpile came from the arsenal of the former Warsaw Pact satellite, now Nato member, the Czech Republic.

Over there are the rockets captured from Russia but made by two supposedly non-aligned countries, Pakistan and Iraq. Next to them is a quantity of Grads from Iran, one of Russia’s key allies and weapon suppliers.

‘And these,’ says an army engineer, pointing to a number of rockets with distinctive black warheads, ‘were supplied by North Korea.’ It’s that Asian dictatorship’s direct intervention in this European conflict which has brought us closer to the brink of a global or even – President Putin threatens – nuclear war.

The arrival in Russia this autumn of 10,000 North Korean troops to fight Ukraine in the Kursk region was the ‘escalation’ which prompted US President Joe Biden to finally drop one of his so-called red lines. Ukraine would henceforth be allowed to use American-supplied long-range weapons against targets inside Russia.

The UK has also permitted Storm Shadow cruise missiles to be similarly used.

Escalation followed escalation with alarming rapidity.

Putin responded by changing Russia’s engagement protocols to permit the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine. To drive home the point, Russia aimed an Oreshnik ballistic missile against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro – the first use of such a Doomsday weapon in the history of warfare.

Thankfully it was not carrying its usual payload of nuclear warheads. But the warning was clear.

Against this backdrop, the clock continues to tick down to January 20, 2025, when Donald Trump – an admirer of Putin and vocal critic of America’s multi-billion-dollar support for Ukraine – returns to the White House.

Here in Donbas, the war is going badly for Ukraine. There is no other way of putting it. The Russians are advancing faster than at any time since 2022. In the face of overwhelming odds, huge infantry losses and ‘red lines’ against using Western weaponry, the Ukrainian defence lines are bending, creaking and breaking.

The focus of this Kremlin push is the Pokrovsk district, where we are now. It’s the logistics hub for the Ukrainian military’s defence of Donbas.

Three days after our visit to the workshop, six of these rockets will be launched by a special army unit, against a concentration of Russian troops and vehicles preparing to assault Pokrovsk.

Mail cameraman Jamie Wiseman and I have been given exclusive access to the preparation and execution of this mission. The 122mm calibre Grads are not ballistic missiles. But Ukraine, which gave up its nuclear stockpile in the 1990s in order to secure its separation from the Soviet empire, has to fight with what it’s got, as the war enters a critical stage.

Another beautiful morning in the Donbas. But the clear blue skies mean the Russian kamikaze drone threat is high. Today we are to accompany a reconnaissance of the Pokrovsk district with the team that will carry out the rocket attack.

A military pick-up equipped with an electronic warfare set leads our small convoy. We’re told to keep within 100 yards of our leader in order to benefit from its drone-jamming umbrella.

This is easier said than done. The convoy drives at high speed, often leaving the Tarmac roads to go across country. The Highway Code no longer applies here.

Our first destination is the small city of Kurakhove. When we last visited, in January, the Russians were a 20-minute drive away.

We stop in the cover of a wood to don our body armour. The soldiers produce the electronic ‘situational’ map. ‘The frontline is only two and a half miles from the centre of Kurakhove this morning and it could have moved closer since then,’ says the squad leader.

‘That means we are in range of and could be targeted by anything from mortars to FVPs (kamikaze drones). We won’t be stopping.’

We pass a huge roadside billboard of the Virgin Mary: ‘Dear Mother of God please save Ukraine,’ it reads. Shortly afterwards, we reach the outskirts of Kurakhove. Or what is left of it. In January Kurakhove was full of dread. Rockets were falling on the edge of town as we arrived. Now it feels doomed.

Since our first visit, the row of shops at the junction where the main highway to Donetsk city meets Victory Street has been devastated by artillery fire. The cafe on the corner where we once ate barbecue chicken and drank chai is shuttered.

The drunk who was directing traffic in the snow is gone, although we see a single female civilian striding defiantly along the roadside with a shopping bag.

We spin about and speed westwards again. In a village a few miles down the road, we stop at a cafe that is still open. A young woman is serving hot drinks and snacks to a clientele of soldiers, within artillery range of the Russian advance. Yes, she expects to have to evacuate, she says, but not yet. Would we like chocolate on our cappuccinos? The resilience of ordinary Ukrainians in the ‘red zones’ is always impressive.

North, now, to Pokrovsk city. The Russians are five miles from its centre. We approach the city through a flat agricultural landscape punctuated by spoil heaps and pitheads. Smoke is rising all along the horizon to our right, where the Russians are attempting a breakthrough. We are warned that Russian kamikaze drones are operating along a major boulevard in the city centre.

It’s eerily quiet. The last evacuation train has left and the daily curfew extends from 3pm to 11am. In the main square, the municipal rose beds need deadheading, the grass verges mowing. But for that to happen, the constant artillery soundtrack needs silencing. We visit the ruins of Corleone’s cafe and pizza restaurant, where we used to meet contacts before a Russian missile closed it down.

The authorities have even evacuated a statue of a local worthy, which is not a vote of confidence in Pokrovsk’s ability to hold out.

The following morning finds us in a maple grove beside a sunflower field, a few miles behind the front. The rocket squad is here to conduct its final practice.

They have arrived with their launch vehicle, a Mitsubishi pick-up, which has been adapted to carry four Grad tubes on the flatbed. This exercise is about marginal gains. On the fire mission, every second will count, both for hitting the target and getting away alive, in a location thick with enemy drones and within range of Russian counter-battery fire.

Certainly, the men shout and run as if it’s for real. All the time, their leader is bent over his iPhone stopwatch, like a 19th-century frigate captain practising broadsides.

Meanwhile the war continues around us. The constant beeping of the unit’s drone detector warns that a Russian Lancet (kamikaze drone) is hunting nearby. A trio of Mi-8 helicopters pass across our front, at tree-top height to avoid Russian air defence systems. Distant artillery sounds like a huge door being slammed.

The practice reaches its climax with the imaginary launch of a volley of Grads.

‘Fire!’ shouts one soldier. ‘Bang!’ shouts another. And so on, four times. Then the controlled chaos of packing up and the getaway. The stopwatch is stopped.

‘Eight minutes and one second,’ the leader announces. He is not happy. It should have been faster. The real operation will take longer. ‘On the frontline, our missions can last ten minutes, maximum. Because on the eleventh minute we will certainly [be located] and that will be that.’

The day of the mission starts with yet another air-raid alert.

One gets to recognise the distinct tones of individual sirens. The one here in Kramatorsk does not have the mournful stirring start of others, but goes straight into its monotone shriek. The local birds seem to hate the sound as much as we do.

The wind is blowing hard today and that will impact the mission. Kamikaze drones struggle with a windspeed of more than ten metres per second, we are told. Today the wind is double that, which is good for our safety. But it will also affect the accuracy of the Grad missiles.

We set off in convoy, again, behind the electronic warfare truck and the launch vehicle, which is disguised with camouflage netting. Eventually, we turn off the highway on to a military track along a ploughed field.

The weather has been hot recently and our vehicles throw up billows of dust that can be seen for miles. But it’s still very blowy, so the drones will struggle to track us. We hope.

We stop in a clearing on the edge of a wood beside a field of black earth. Waiting for us is the ammunition van carrying the Grads.

The squad leader explains the mission: ‘Two sighting rockets, then four more shots in a volley and we leave as fast as we can. If there is something in the air [Russian artillery] you lie flat or jump into a hole, if you can. You do not ever run for the vehicles.’

The rockets to be used today were made in Pakistan. The men paint messages on their casing, screw in detonators and then load the tubes.

Nearby, a Starlink set – a satellite communication device manufactured by Elon Musk’s SpaceX – is being used. The operator is talking to the drone unit.

Temperature and coordinates are measured. Everything has to be right. One of the men carries the unit’s ‘drone gun’ – a pump- action shotgun – with a belt of bright brass-ended cartridges. The weapon of last resort.

The soldiers enjoy a final cigarette, then we leave for the launch site. This final leg of the journey has a Mad Max quality to it, as the vehicles race each other, wreathed in dust clouds, across vast rolling fields. Even the enormous slag heap in the distance looks like Ayers Rock.

We drive into treeline on a ridge overlooking a wooded valley. A lonely soldier is already standing in the middle of a field with an artillery-aiming compass on a tripod. The wind is blowing hard and the sun has sunk below the treeline as the soldiers set up the launcher and begin to call out coordinates and adjustments. A soldier climbs a tree to cut down a branch that is blocking the line of fire.

As we watch, I chat to the deputy commander. His wife and children are refugees in Lincolnshire which, he says, is ‘very beautiful’. He shows me a family photograph. How surreal all this seems.

The wind drops. ‘Get ready,’ says the unit commander. ‘Remember what I told you.’ We crouch in the undergrowth.

‘Fire!’ a soldier shouts and the first ranging rocket goes with an astounding noise. The backblast sends a rolling cloud of black dust across the setting sun. Jamie feels the dragon’s breath on his arm.

A soldier leaps on to the launcher to make an adjustment. The tube is reloaded. Then there’s another hellish roar and the second sighting rocket shoots into the sky.

Now a tense pause as the drone operator who has been watching the fall of the first two Grads calls in aiming corrections. More reloading.

The big moment has come.

‘Volley fire!’ is the order – and four missiles are launched in quick, deafening succession.

The last has barely left the launcher when the escape begins. Controlled panic. The launcher reverses at speed out of the treeline and the driver, pumping his fist out of the window, accelerates away. We must follow, but Jamie has lost a camera in the undergrowth and I’m screaming at him to leave it. Within one minute of the launch all of us are speeding into a Walt Disney sunset.

No counter battery fire and the drone images will show two of the rockets scoring direct hits on enemy troops and light armoured vehicles. The rocket squad is on target and lives to fight another day. And each day is more dangerous – for Ukraine and the world.

The globalisation of the war took another step forward this month when the Ukrainian defence minister was hosted in Seoul by the South Korean president. They discussed South Korea becoming a new weapon supply source.

Notwithstanding the Asian democracy’s own political turmoil, that will be a major development. The Ukraine war will have come to both sides of the Korean peninsula. Meanwhile, major attacks continue. Almost two weeks ago, Russia launched its biggest drone strike on targets across Ukraine since the full-scale invasion. Later, one million Ukrainians were left without power after a concentrated attack on the country’s electricity grid. Punishment for the use of Western weapons inside Russia.

Set against these figures, those six Grads we saw fired might seem inconsequential. But not as symbols of Ukraine’s continued defiance.

Additional reporting: Oleksandr Kostiuchenko