The war Ivan’s country started provides a steady soundtrack to his everyday life. “We often compare it to the noise made by those cheap Chinese motors made for scooters and mopeds,” he explained, “a low-pitched, unpleasant buzzing.” Drones that fly uninterrupted in the day he presumes to be Russian; those that draw fire at night, Ukrainian. His ears find them hard to distinguish otherwise: “which, in my view, is the main danger.” The IT-worker lives just south of the Russian city of Belgorod,