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King of Drones is a fact-based fictional account of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine with the story progressing through 2024 and mirroring real events. It is also a story about how the ever-changing circumstances of war can create and dissolve temporary alliances.
Scott Beamer, a retired USAF Major and former F-15 pilot living in eastern Ukraine, and Lt. Colonel Konstantin Yefremov, a high-ranking officer in Russia’s 76th Guards Air Assault Division, face off in a unique and evolving personal battle embedded within the greater conflict. As the fortunes of war ebb and flow for Russia and Ukraine, so also do the circumstances involving these two individuals who find themselves pitted against one another in an ongoing struggle for life, or death.
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Though it was midday, the sun was absent from the colorless February sky as Scott Beamer meticulously spread Anna’s ashes in the garden that was to be her final resting place.
“Sweetheart, I promise you this place will become the most beautiful spot on earth come Spring”, Beamer proclaimed, as a solitary tear rolled off his chin and fell into the fertile ground that was now mixing with the ashes of his wife of close to two decades. “Please wait for me. I’ll join you here one day.”
The Beamers’ home was a cute, but small villa in the Donetsk region of Eastern Ukraine, yet their land exceeded two hundred acres. Scott had met Anna at the University of Kyiv after retiring as a Major from the USAF, where he flew F-15’s and was a sure bet to make Colonel. However, he decided instead to explore a second civilian career, which he initiated by first studying abroad. Though Anna was his second wife, when he fell for her, he knew it was the first time in his life he’d ever truly been in love.
After an intense and exciting few months of dating, the couple got married in the States, honeymooned in Australia and returned to Ukraine. There they bought the villa and five acres of land that, over the next 18 years, they expanded to its current configuration. Scott’s monthly retirement payments paid most of the bills while he dabbled as an inventor and Anna became a freelance photographer. They were content and experiencing life on their terms until everything changed.
“I should be back home before lunch,” Scott remembered his wife’s last words to him. By 4PM, rather than Anna’s Black Ford Expedition pulling into their driveway, it was the local police. Somehow, Beamer immediately knew he would spend the rest of his life alone, as a widower.
“Scott Beamer?” the officer asked in Russian, then again in Ukrainian. Beamer was fluent in both.
“What’s happened?” he begrudgingly inquired, also in both languages.
“Drunk driver hit her at a high rate of speed. Both were killed instantly.” Beamer exhaled and as if felt his soul was exiting his lungs with his breath.
At that very moment in St. Petersburg, Russia, Konstantin Yefremov, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Russian Army, was watching his 18-year-old daughter Nadia attempt to speak with her therapist as her entire body shook uncontrollably. A little more than a year earlier, on Christmas Eve 2020, Nadia was raped by a middle-class 32-year-old father of four who had finished helping his wife wrap presents for the kids and decided to indulge in a late-night drink or three at a nearby bar. On her way home from visiting friends, Nadia was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The rapist, Dmitry Solovyov, was quickly identified, arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison, which likely saved Solovyov’s pathetic life in more ways than one. Despite his prestigious military career, Konstantin knew it would end abruptly if he ever came face-to-face with his daughter’s assailant.
On this day, the therapist was asking Nadia to talk about the incident. After witnessing the resulting trauma, the therapist ended the session by recommending that Konstantin get an emotional support dog for his daughter. In fact, the therapist knew of one such animal that had come from a long line of service dogs, had recently completed a lengthy training period and was now available for purchase…for a tidy sum that equated to nearly four months of Konstantin’s salary. Despite feeling a little suspicious that he was being roped into a hustle, he agreed to acquire the dog, believing that even if he was being manipulated into taking this particular “opportunity”, having a canine companion for his daughter might actually help regardless of its pedigree. That feeling was reinforced when he watched Nadia’s face light up as he made the arrangements to pick up the animal.
As the gloom of February 2021 transitioned into Spring and then early Summer, Anna’s resting place transformed into a magical flower garden. Scott Beamer spent mornings tending to the annual and perennial flowers he planted, all the while having a one-way conversation with Anna. He would take breaks to work long hours in his shop but always returned to share a story with Anna about his day, and he would often sit with her late into the night.
Beamer expanded a cellar beneath the villa to create a workspace where he enjoyed creating and modifying aerial drones that he became very good at flying. He believed that a new era of small and inexpensive customized drones had unlimited potential in commercial and military applications, and he crafted several unique designs he intended to patent.
As the winter of 2021-2022 quickly approached, local Ukrainian news outlets occasionally carried stories about mounting tensions with the country’s imposing neighbor to the east, Russia. Despite the heads up, given the long history of the region and the co-mingling of its people, neither the Ukrainian nor the Russian civilian populations put much stock in the reports. However, Beamer’s friends and contacts from his Air Force life began to encourage him to leave Ukraine.
“No,” was always his abrupt response, without explaining that he would never willingly leave Anna’s final resting place. Now, hearing that hostilities were possible, Beamer began stocking up on supplies and food. He also began to consider how he might use the drones he’d created if the shit truly hit the fan.
At 58, Scott was an avid runner and had developed an intricate network of trails that allowed him to cover a six-mile course without ever leaving his 200 acres. He usually ran every other day until winter brought unfavorable conditions, and then he’d train on a treadmill in his workshop. Though this wouldn’t necessarily help him survive the rigors of war, it did help him develop the stamina needed to work intensely for long periods of time. As a one-man assembly line, this would soon prove to be beneficial.
In St. Petersburg, Lt. Col. Konstantin Yefremov and his subordinates were simply told that they were assembling for a special military operation that could take up to 30 days to complete, and that the operation would commence in Belarus. Upon arrival there, the vast amount of military hardware arrayed before him led Konstantin to doubt that this was a mere training exercise. Though he said nothing to his troops, he suspected that the Russian Army, including his regiment, the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, was poised to invade Ukraine. On the 24th of February 2022, Konstantin’s suspicions were confirmed.
From the get-go, the invasion was an unmitigated disaster for the aggressors. Attempts to keep the attack a surprise meant only regimental commanders knew about strategic objectives, and as soon as shots were fired at and returned by Ukrainian border guards, it became painfully clear to Russian boots on the ground that the battle plan was poorly conceived. It seemed to hinge on little more than parading a massive force across the border to encircle Kyiv and frighten its government into capitulation with hopes that a supposedly disenchanted populace would welcome the installation of a pro-Russian puppet regime with open arms. However, rather than greeting the occupiers with open arms, the Ukrainians actually armed themselves and were willing to fight to the death to expel the invaders.
Though the Ukrainians were greatly outmanned and outgunned by the Russians, they led an extremely well-coordinated and effective counterattack that was enhanced by a complete lack of logistical support and effective command and control by the Russian General Staff. Soon, an invading convoy some 40 miles long was clogging up a single attack vector with vehicles running out of gas, or blowing tires that had dry rotted over time, while corrupt officials intercepted funds allocated for repair, maintenance and replacement of tires and equipment. Soon, the Russians became stationary targets for a nimble and highly motivated adversary who perceived them as ducks on a pond.
In just one short week, Konstantin’s troops were depleted, cold, hungry, and dying by the dozens. They couldn’t move forward, laterally or fall back and many died without ever firing a single shot. Clutching one mortally wounded soldier that was likely still a teenager, Konstantin cursed his inept superiors out loud and vowed to request an inquiry into how the second most powerful army in the world could be led by such utter idiots.
After multiple conflicting orders from command, in March, Konstantin’s 76th Guard Regiment was sent to relieve Russian forces in Bucha, also located in the Kyiv Oblast. There the Russians had also taken heavy casualties but were eventually able to dislodge the Ukrainian defenders and capture the small city. As his unit reached the outskirts of Bucha, the stench of death burned Konstantin’s nostrils. Bodies were strewn everywhere: horses, cows, Russian soldiers, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians caught in the crossfire. However, when they approached the town center, all Konstantin observed were dead civilians, including women and young boys. Many had their hands tied behind their backs.
With senses dulled by the carnage, it took a few minutes for Konstantin to process the horrific scene. But he ultimately came to the irrefutable conclusion that Russian troops had likely herded a couple dozen local citizens into the town square to execute them. As he contemplated what type of human being could do such an evil thing, he saw an older civilian man of about 60 on a bicycle pedaling slowly but steadily with what appeared to be a loaf of bread tucked under an arm. Without warning, a burst of machine gun fire ripped through the man’s body as he first dropped the bread and then crashed his bicycle. The shooter then approached, dislodged the body and grabbed the bike, proclaiming, “I’m taking this home for my kids.”
Konstantin resisted the urge to shoot the soldier on the spot and approached him, intending to call for his arrest. As he did, a full Colonel from the soldier’s regiment appeared on the scene and calmly ordered his men to depart, allowing the murderer to take the stolen bicycle with him. Suddenly, Konstantin became violently ill.
Two weeks later, Konstantin and the surviving Russian remnants retreated and were back in Belarus, with more than half their ranks dead, seriously wounded or MIA. The Battle for Kyiv was over as quickly as it had started, thwarted as much by Russian arrogance, corruption and incompetence as by Ukrainian resolve. It was a colossal setback for the Russians, and one that would forever haunt Konstantin.
The spring and summer of 2022 passed with an ebb and flow on the front lines, with the Russian Army achieving much more success in Eastern Ukraine, given its proximity to the Russian border that allowed for better logistical resupply of its troops in the field. First, hardened Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol became encircled and were forced to surrender. Then regular Russian divisions joined several private military companies to begin a westward thrust into Ukraine’s Donbas Region. Back in Moscow, despite lacking complete control of the four regions, Russian President Vladimir Putin gleefully announced the annexation of Donetsk and three other Ukrainian oblasts in September. Soon thereafter, Russia was again on its back foot as Ukraine capitalized on the continued lack of viable Russian command and control in many places along the front, where individual Russian combat units were unable, or unwilling to coordinate their efforts with one another. It almost seemed as if the Russian military, perceived as one of the most advanced and capable fighting forces on the planet before its attack on Ukraine, merely consisted of a fractured hodgepodge of individual fighting elements that were competing with one another for supplies as well as success on the battlefield.
Just twenty kilometers from Scott Beamer’s villa, this rivalry would soon manifest itself as an infamous private military company named the ‘Wagner Group’ began positioning itself to assault the nearby city of Bakhmut. Wagner was led by a boisterous warlord named Yevgeny Prigozhin, who held the distinction of once being Putin’s personal chef. It was rumored that Prigozhin still found favor with Putin, despite being openly critical of Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu who was also a personal friend and hunting buddy of the Russian President.
Beamer knew it was just a matter of time before Russian troops would ultimately show up at his door, and after hearing about the atrocities they had committed in most every region they infected; he doubted they would take kindly to him, especially if they learned he was an American living in Ukraine. Each night in the garden, he would converse with his deceased wife, pondering what her responses to his comments and questions would be if she were still alive.
“The fact that you’re fluent in Russian might help keep our little secret,” he imagined Anna saying.
He replied, “They’ll ask me to produce papers.”
“Then you should leave while you can,” she said. “Go back to America.”
“I will never leave you,” Scott emphatically replied. “But I do want to run something by you sweetheart.”
“Shoot”, she said.
Chuckling to himself, he remarked, “Only if I have to. But if it comes to that, I plan to take a bunch of those Cossack bastards with me.”
“What’s your plan”? Scott imagined Anna, true to form, pressing him for details.
“I know how you love our villa” Scott answered before pausing. “But I think I should burn it down and live under the ruins in the cellar. They may assume the place is abandoned, with nothing of value left. I’ll monitor our property by hiding several of our cameras in strategic places above and only come out at night or when I need water from the well. I have provisions down there that could last me an entire year, if necessary, but I might have to let your flower garden fend for itself.”
Anna’s response was tongue in cheek: “That’s actually a pretty good plan, assuming you’re too damn hard-headed to heed my advice and go back to the States while you still can”.
Scott smiled to himself, whispering “That’s my girl!”
While in Belarus, Konstantin received a text from Nadia that read: “Daddy, I got arrested.” To which he replied, “FOR WHAT?!”
Her next text read, “A bunch of my friends were peacefully protesting the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine. One held up a sign that read ‘Stop the war’”.
“What does that have to do with you???” her father inquired.
Nadia quickly texted back, “I was there.”
After a pause of nearly a minute, Konstantin sent his daughter a two-word response, typing, “I see.”
Nadia continued, “I was detained and questioned, and issued a court summons for next month.”
“For just being there?” her father asked.
“The formal charge is for engaging in conduct that discredits the Russian military”, she answered, with Konstantin thinking to himself: “Maybe we should be discredited.” However, his text reply read, “I’m back in Belarus. Send me the date and time and I’ll try to take leave and be there.”
“I love you Daddy”, Nadia replied.
Konstantine’s final text of the exchange read, “I love you too. Everything will be alright.”
As he put his cell phone back into his pocket, he doubted his own words. Even though it was a trivial sounding charge, it carried a maximum prison term of seven years. In his heart, Konstantin knew he would never allow his daughter to serve a single day for simply standing on a street corner, and the thought of the lengths he was willing to go to prevent her incarceration terrified him.
After the 76th had a week to lick its wounds in Belarus, it was abruptly sent to Donetsk, Russia, to assemble and combine with other units that were also under-strength after suffering similar attrition. Konstantin’s request for leave was denied, and he was furious that his daughter was left to fend for herself in court without his presence. Several conversations with Nadia’s lawyer gave him some degree of comfort because the female attorney was both cunning and passionate about defending his daughter to the fullest extent of her abilities. That said, he found it difficult to sleep at night while constantly worrying about Nadia and the potential outcome of her case.
While the 76th was being rebuilt, rumors began circulating that it would soon be sent to support Wagner PMC in an assault against the city of Artemivsk, which the Ukrainians renamed “Bakhmut”. Though Wagner had a reputation for ferocity against inferior opposition, it was still just a mercenary force that relied more on brute force than intricate strategy, and Yevgeny Prigozhin, its charismatic leader, had not served a single day in the Russian military.
With some down time afforded in Donetsk, Konstantin searched the internet for information about Bakhmut, only to find the loudmouth Prigozhin plastered all across social media, with someone filming his fat ass in combat fatigues promising to personally hand Putin the keys to Ukraine. In another video, he was seen addressing scores of prisoners in some Russian gulag promising the dregs of society full pardons for six months of paid military service.
As one of the senior officers in the 76th, Konstantin knew that despite his unit’s difficulties near Kyiv, his troops were much more capable to assault Bakhmut with fewer casualties than Wagner. He also knew these convicts would be thrown into frontal assaults as cannon fodder. Yet night after night, there was always a new video of Prigozhin bragging about what he was about to accomplish for Mother Russia. “I’d enjoy meeting that bald-headed POS in a dark alley somewhere- though they may arrest me for elder abuse”, Konstantin thought to himself. “So, the 76th’s role is to simply protect his flank? Who is propping up this buffoon?” Konstantin wondered. “What dirt does he have on Putin?”
As the charred remnants of the Beamers’ villa still glowed late into the night, Scott addressed Anna, as if she was sitting right there beside him. “If I survive this war, I’ll build it back just like it was.”
As the embers faded into the night sunrise was still hours away, but the eastern sky began lighting up. Though he still couldn’t hear the distant explosions, he knew the battle for Bakhmut was commencing in the villages east of town along the key supply routes. Scott also knew tomorrow’s sunrise would likely be the last one he’d see for quite a while. He doubted the Russian Army would simply pass through his 200 acres, but he prayed that they would.
As Wagner forces displaced the Russian regular army as the point of the spear thrusting into Bakhmut, the freed prisoners that took Prigozhin’s deal began realizing they’d been handed a bait and switch. The street savvy convicts quickly grasped that they would be used as bait to smoke out the Ukrainian positions in frontal “meat wave” attacks. Their final instructions were certainly not a pep talk, and they went something like this:
Wagner Officer 1, while handing out rifles to the former convicts, yelled: “One out of every two get rifles. The one with the rifle leads.”
Wagner Officer 2 then added the following inspirational words: “When the one with the rifle gets killed, the one who is following picks up the rifle and shoots at whoever killed the man in front of him.”
Brilliant…