Every morning Igor Smelyansky looks at a vast map of Ukraine on his office wall and decides where he should put his people in harm’s way.

His aides provide him with live intelligence about Russian attacks and he deploys his teams, balancing their potential operational success against risk to life or limb.

But Smelyansky is no military commander. He is the head of Ukraine’s state postal service, Ukrposhta.

And every day he must decide how far to send his postmen and women into the deadly “kill zone” along the front lines where the threat of drone attack is ever present.

“If it’s too dangerous to go today, we won’t go,” Smelyansky told us. “We’ll go tomorrow, or we’ll go somewhere else. The key is to be as agile as you can.”

Ukrposhta does more than just collect letters and parcels. It pays out pensions in hard cash, it takes payment for utility bills. And it delivers vital food and medicine to people on the margins of society.

As such, it offers a lifeline to millions of poor and elderly Ukrainians living in remote villages where shops are rare and trips to the city are expensive and dangerous. In a vast rural nation wracked by war, Ukrposhta is part of the glue that holds the country together.

That has made the service a target for Russia – which in recent months has stepped up not only its attacks on postmen and women but also sorting offices and logistical hubs. The Kremlin has claimed strikes like this are retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on Russian online retailers like Wildberries.

Speaking in his imposing Soviet-era office building that overlooks Kyiv’s famous Maidan square, Smelyansky said: “If we don’t go [to a village], we don’t have basic supply. We don’t have food. We don’t have medicine. People will struggle. If we do go, they may delay a decision to evacuate from the areas they probably should have evacuated.”

There are many risks. If a post van turns up unannounced, a crowd can form, creating a target for an opportunistic Russian drone operator. But if they call ahead, information could leak.

“Is it a danger?” Smelyansky said. “Absolutely. Because there are Russian sympathisers who can give them the location of the truck that’s coming.”

If Smelyansky chooses not to send a van in, he faces criticism. “You get messages from people from those villages: ‘You betrayed us. You didn’t come…’ But if I go, I may risk the life of the driver.”

Smelyansky says Russia is deliberately targeting his staff because of the vital role they play shoring up Ukraine’s resilience, helping people stay alive in their homes through the fighting and bitter winters.

“It’s not an accident, it’s deliberate,” he said. “By attacking Ukrposhta, you put pressure on people… who are depending on the truck coming in.” Russia denies targeting civilians.

Since 2022, hundreds of Ukrposhta branches and vehicles have been hit, and more than 50 staff have lost their lives, either on the frontline or on their rounds, according to Ukrposhta.

We travelled with Kateryna Marynych, a 38-year-old postmistress, near Zaporizhzhia – a city not too far from the southern frontlines.

She lost her home and her husband during the full-scale invasion, and came to the area to rebuild her life. She ran the post office in the village of Lukasheve for two years until it was destroyed in March by a Russian drone, targeting soldiers working nearby.

After her van drew up, a steady queue of elderly folk formed. She sat in the front passenger seat, window open, handing out cash, taking payments.

One customer, Nadiia, said she was grateful: “It’s a long way for us to travel to Zaporizhzhia. Especially now, at a time when there are attacks all around us. The fact that they come here is really nice.”

Oleksandrivna, 77, arrived wearing a purple dressing gown, walking with a crutch. When I asked her where she would be without Kateryna, she replied: “We would be stuffed! I am just out of hospital after a stroke. Where could I go for my medicine?”

But Mykola, 64, pointed to another service the post office provides to a largely elderly population. “It is very important,” he said. “It’s one of the few joys of the month: you come out, have a chat with people, collect your pension, and go home.”

For many people in remote communities, Kateryna can be their last link with the Ukrainian state.

She says she hopes her customers are proud of her. “They love me, they need me,” she said. “They are waiting for me. Sometimes they call me, especially after attacks on Zaporizhzhia and ask me how I am. We are like a big family. My attitude towards them is like a grandmother or grandfather.”

The attacks on Ukrposhta form part of Russia’s wider escalation of its war on Ukraine, stepping up fast drone attacks on civilian infrastructure including business infrastructure, energy facilities, transport networks and border posts. Analysts say that as Russia’s invasion stagnates on the battlefield in the east, it is looking for other ways of putting pressure on Kyiv.

For safety, Kateryna always travels with her partner, Slava, who drives. While she sorts the cash, he works from the back of the van, taking and receiving parcels, delivering food and water. He also carries a side-arm in a holster, for personal protection; these vans carry a lot of cash.

Both wear body armour when close to the front line. And they have an antenna in the van that shows them the location of the small first-person-view drones that render the frontline so deadly. They have seen drones from the car but luckily have not yet been hit.

She accepted her job was dangerous but would never change it. “It is my work,” she said. “If I can’t, who will do my job?”

Ukraine’s defence comes in many forms – and it’s not always delivered at the barrel of a gun.

Additional reporting by Mariana Matveichuk