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New York Times
27-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Drones, Mines and Snipers: Ukraine's Front Line Is a World Away from Peace Talks
Hunted by drones, stalked by snipers and surrounded by minefields, soldiers fighting in Ukraine can't risk even a small lapse in concentration. That is why Col. Dmytro Palisa, commander of Ukraine's 33rd Mechanized Brigade, instructs his soldiers to ignore speculation about a possible cease-fire. 'They start relaxing, they start overthinking, putting on rose-colored glasses, thinking that tomorrow will be easier. No,' he said in an interview at a command post on the eastern front. 'We shoot until we are given the order to stop.' As diplomats thousands of miles away talk about a possible truce, Russia and Ukraine are engaged in bloody battles as intense as any of the war. The furious fighting, tearing across the Ukrainian front, is, in part, a late play for land and leverage in the talks, which the Trump administration says are making progress. But it is also evidence of deep skepticism about the negotiations: Even if incremental steps such as a pause in violence on the Black Sea manage to take hold — few Ukrainian soldiers or civilians believe it would lead to a lasting peace. Both sides are still battling to establish better positions for future fighting. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine says he believes Russia intends to launch new offensive operations 'to put maximum pressure on Ukraine and then issue ultimatums from a position of strength,' as he put it last week. Kyiv wants to deny Moscow that advantage. Ukrainian forces remain outnumbered and outgunned — much as they have been since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than three years ago. But they have largely halted Russian advances so far this year and are now engaged in localized counterattacks to claw back land. Military analysts tracking battlefield developments confirm that the already glacial pace of Russian advances has largely stalled, even though Moscow's forces continue to launch assaults along key parts of the front. 'This war keeps changing the rules' In interviews from the front line, Ukrainian soldiers and military leaders credited several factors for their resilience: New defensive strategies that more completely integrate drones, rapid adaptation to shifting threats, signs of Russian fatigue and improving morale under a new commander of ground forces, Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi. 'This war keeps changing the rules,' Colonel Palisa said. 'That means we constantly have to adapt. Every night, before going to sleep, we already have to plan an alternative strategy for tomorrow.' The Ukrainian retreat from most of the Kursk region of Russia earlier this month promises to again reshape the contours of the fight. Tens of thousands of soldiers dedicated to Moscow's seven-month campaign to retake Russian land there can now be redeployed. Col. Oleh Hrudzevych, 35, deputy commander of Ukraine's 43rd Mechanized Brigade, said that the Kursk campaign 'really pulled a significant part of enemy forces' and firepower from other parts of the front. For instance, he said, while battles raged in Kursk, there was a 50 percent drop in the number of aerial bombs — one of Russia's most effective weapons — in the Kupiansk area on the northern edge of the eastern front, where he is deployed. Russian forces, he said, have been limited to 'mosquito bite' tactics — small assaults that generally end in failure. But he expects that Russia may now redirect some forces to his area. Capt. Yurii Fedorenko, commander of the 429th Achilles Unmanned Systems Regiment, said that the main task along the northeastern part of the front was keeping Russian troops from expanding their small foothold on the Oskil River. Unable to erect pontoon bridges because of the threat posed by Ukrainian drones and artillery, the Russian forces have been using small boats to ferry men and equipment across the river under the cover of bad weather. Captain Fedorenko said that for nearly a month, Russian units had failed to expand their position and continued to pay a heavy price to hold the land they have. 'We conducted a drone flyover of a small tree line about 200 meters long and quite narrow,' he said. 'In that one tree line alone, we counted around 190 enemy bodies.' Drone footage shared by the Ukrainian military with The Times generally supports his account. But it was not possible to independently verify the precise number of Russian soldiers who were killed or injured, or to measure the Ukrainian losses over that same period of time. Hundreds of miles away, on the banks of the Dnipro River on the southern front, the Russian forces are searching for weak points in the Ukrainian line. Two months ago, Russian troops launched a series of cross-river assaults — using some 15 to 20 boats in each attack, soldiers said — but the effort failed. Now, the Russian military is launching probing attacks, trying to press north along the river toward the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is under Ukrainian control. President Vladimir V. Putin and other Russian officials have said publicly that their goal is to fully control the city and the surrounding area. But their plans to try to encircle Zaporizhzhia were put on hold when Russian troops were redirected to Kursk, said Sr. Sgt. Andrii Klymenko, who has been fighting in the area for many months. His claim was supported by analysts who track Russian military movements. 'Now they're simply going to revive it,' he said. A 'Mad Max' aesthetic Much of the most ferocious fighting continues to be concentrated in the rolling hills and ruined industrial cities of the eastern Donbas region, where after three years Russia has failed to seize control of two coveted targets: the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. Colonel Palisa oversees a stretch of Ukrainian defenses south of Pokrovsk, a city in Donetsk, where Russian offensive operations made the bulk of their progress last year. But Colonel Palisa said that aggressive drone warfare and smart defensive tactics had, for now, blunted Russia's advantages. 'The enemy hasn't advanced a single meter in this sector for the past three to four weeks,' he noted. 'As of now, we can say that we have stabilized the situation.' At the same time, he added, his forces have had to adjust to a growing threat: the proliferation of Russian drones tethered to ultrathin fiber-optic cables that render them immune to electronic jamming. 'When they didn't have fiber optics, we could still move around,' he said. After the fiber-optic drones appeared, he said, his brigade lost some 10 vehicles in just seven days. 'That made me realize that we had to completely change our approach and abandon vehicles altogether,' he said. Like their Russian counterparts, Ukrainian soldiers now frequently use quad bikes and buggies or move on foot. They often wear cloaks that mask a soldier's heat signature from drones outfitted with thermal vision cameras. Netting has been strung over critical supply roads, a simple but effective defense that Colonel Palisa said had cut successful enemy attacks by more than half. And soldiers now routinely carry shotguns along with their assault rifles. It makes for a sort of 'Mad Max' aesthetic as tanks and armored vehicles mix with civilian cars, motorcycles and quad bikes retrofitted with cages and jammers. The low-tech adaptations, along with a broad restructuring of the military, are strategies that Kyiv hopes will allow Ukraine to continue fighting — even as its primary military ally, the United States, pulls back support, increasingly repeats the Kremlin's narrative and pressures Ukraine into cease-fire negotiations. On the front line, any talk about a lasting peace still feels like a dangerous fantasy. Soldiers say they believe that the fighting will continue until the price of war becomes too high for the Kremlin to bear and Ukraine is made strong enough to deter any future aggression. 'We are fighting for the right to live,' Captain Fedorenko said. 'Americans must understand that this is not about pressuring Ukraine into some abstract peace. Such a peace is not possible — because Ukraine did not start this war.'
Boston Globe
21-02-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
Russia talks peace while troops threaten new region in Ukraine
The Ukrainian backpedaling can be seen in the westward relocation of the aid station where medics of the 33rd Mechanized Brigade treat wounded soldiers. Late last year, they retreated three times in as many months, hauling medical beds and blood banks in trucks with them. Advertisement The medics never thought they would be forced to entirely abandon Donetsk, an area where their unit had fought for a year, and retreat over its western boundary into Dnipropetrovsk. Earlier this year, that became a reality. Now, the medics fear Moscow's troops will soon follow. 'It always happens this way,' said Lieutenant Vitalii Voitiuk, head of the brigade's medical unit. 'When medical units start moving into an area, it means the front line isn't far behind.' He was speaking at his new aid station near the front line where injured soldiers receive lifesaving care before being sent to a hospital farther behind the lines. Outside the aid station, the distant rumble of outgoing artillery fire echoed through the night. 'That alone tells you the war is getting closer,' said Voitiuk, a burly 34-year-old. Civilians, too, are bracing for the fight. Some have already evacuated — including those who fled the war in the east earlier and do not want to be caught in the violence again — while others are making plans to relocate. Advertisement 'When we read the requests to evacuate people from Dnipropetrovsk, it felt terrifying,' said Bohdan Zahorulko, a worker at East SOS, a Ukrainian nongovernment organization helping internally displaced people. 'But it was also a wake-up call about the reality of the fight.' Russia's push toward Dnipropetrovsk, an area of more than 3 million people with major steel mills, builds on six months of rapid advances in Donetsk. Since August, its troops have captured an average of about 180 square miles of territory each month in Ukraine, nearly four times the size of San Francisco, according to the Black Bird Group, a Finland research company. Most of those gains were in Donetsk. In recent weeks, Russia's advance has slowed. Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military expert who recently returned from a research trip in eastern Ukraine, attributed the slowdown to bad weather hindering Russian mechanized assaults and airstrikes. He also noted Ukraine's effective use of drones to hit troops and armored vehicles. 'But drones can't hold territory,' said Lieutenant Colonel Vadim Balyuk, commander of the Shkval Special Forces Assault Battalion in Ukraine's 59th Brigade. Speaking from a small wooden house in the border area, where he monitors live battlefield footage on screens, he said his unit's job is to do what drones cannot: secure control of villages and clear a path for Ukrainian infantry to move in. Balyuk said his unit had recently cleared two settlements of Russian forces, which could have been used to support their push toward Dnipropetrovsk. But he had no illusions that the fight was over. 'The enemy is just regrouping now,' he said. Advertisement Soldiers returning from the Donetsk front said Ukraine's biggest battlefield challenge remains unchanged: an enemy whose overwhelming manpower advantage allows for relentless assaults. Dmytro, 35, an infantryman with a concussion, was evacuated to the 33rd Mechanized Brigade's aid point one recent night. He described a four-hour trench battle so fierce that he could not lift his head above the parapet to spot attacking Russian troops. But from the incoming fire, he said, he could tell they were advancing in small groups, methodically closing in. 'All the soldiers from my section of the trench were evacuated,' said Dmytro, who declined to give his last name per military rules. In Mezhova, a small town in Dnipropetrovsk standing in the path of the Russian advance, the number of soldiers at times appears to outnumber civilians — they queue at the post office and crowd into cafes, and their olive-green pickups line the streets. The new reality weighs heaviest on refugees who fled the Donetsk region earlier in the war and resettled in Mezhova and nearby settlements. Over the past three years, the population has surged from 14,000 to 21,000 with their arrival. 'For so long, we thought this place was safe,' said Nelia Seimova, who moved to Mezhova in August after escaping Novohrodivka, which is now under Russian occupation. 'I had plans — buying a house, getting a job, sending my child to school. A normal life.' Now, Seimova, 33, is planning to move again, farther west. She knows from experience not to wait for the town to be hit with regular bombardment. 'We've been through this before,' she said, tears filling her eyes. Advertisement Volodymyr Zrazhevsky, the mayor of Mezhova, is also worried about airstrikes, particularly glide bombs — powerful weapons carrying hundreds of pounds of explosives that Russia often uses to level towns before ground assaults. Each day, Zrazhevsky studies a battlefield map marked with circles indicating which cities are within the range of the bombs as Russian forces advance. For now, Mezhova is safe. 'But we understand that if it happens — and it will at some point — we'll need to take drastic measures,' he said, possibly mandatory evacuations. This article originally appeared in .
New York Times
21-02-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Russia Talks Peace While Troops Threaten New Region in Ukraine
As the United States and Russia begin talks to end the war, Moscow is pressing its advantage on the battlefield by closing in on Dnipropetrovsk, one of Ukraine's largest regions and one with a major industrial base. Russian troops are now less than three miles from the region's border, and they have been pushing forward in recent days. Should the Russian Army cross from the eastern Donetsk region into Dnipropetrovsk, it would deal a big blow to morale in Ukraine — marking the fifth region to face partial Russian occupation and expanding Moscow's control over the war-torn country. It could also complicate Kyiv's position in territorial negotiations that might arise during peace talks. The Russian advance has already reshaped the landscape of Dnipropetrovsk's border area, once a quiet expanse of rolling fields and small villages. Now, trenches and anti-tank ditches line roads where convoys of armored vehicles pass. Tanks are concealed in tree lines. In villages closest to the front, soldiers have taken over buildings damaged by bombing or abandoned by locals. The Ukrainian backpedaling can be seen in the westward relocation of the aid station where medics of the 33rd Mechanized Brigade treat wounded soldiers. Late last year, they retreated three times in as many months, hauling medical beds and blood banks in trucks with them. The medics never thought they would be forced to entirely abandon Donetsk, an area where their unit had fought for a year, and retreat over its western boundary into Dnipropetrovsk. Earlier this year, that became a reality. Now, the medics fear Moscow's troops will soon follow. 'It always happens this way,' said Lt. Vitalii Voitiuk, head of the brigade's medical unit. 'When medical units start moving into an area, it means the front line isn't far behind.' He was speaking at his new aid station near the frontline where injured soldiers receive lifesaving care before being sent to a hospital farther behind the lines. Outside the aid station, the distant rumble of outgoing artillery fire echoed through the night. 'That alone tells you the war is getting closer,' said Mr. Voitiuk, a burly 34-year-old. Civilians, too, are bracing for the fight. Some have already evacuated — including those who fled the war in the east earlier and do not want to be caught in the violence again — while others are making plans to relocate. 'When we read the requests to evacuate people from Dnipropetrovsk, it felt terrifying,' said Bohdan Zahorulko, a worker at East SOS, a Ukrainian nongovernment organization helping internally displaced people. 'But it was also a wake-up call about the reality of the fight.' Russia's push toward Dnipropetrovsk, an area of more than three million people with major steel mills, builds on six months of rapid advances in Donetsk. Since August, its troops have captured an average of about 180 square miles of territory each month in Ukraine, nearly four times the size of San Francisco, according to the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based research company. Most of those gains were in Donetsk. In recent weeks, Russia's advance has slowed. Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military expert who recently returned from a research trip in eastern Ukraine, attributed the slowdown to bad weather hindering Russian mechanized assaults and airstrikes. He also noted Ukraine's effective use of drones to hit troops and armored vehicles. 'But drones can't hold territory,' said Lt. Col. Vadim Balyuk, commander of the Shkval Special Forces Assault Battalion in Ukraine's 59th Brigade. Speaking from a small wooden house in the border area, where he monitors live battlefield footage on screens, he said his unit's job is to do what drones cannot: secure control of villages and clear a path for Ukrainian infantry to move in. Colonel Balyuk said his unit had recently cleared two settlements of Russian forces, which could have been used to support their push toward Dnipropetrovsk. But he had no illusions that the fight was over. 'The enemy is just regrouping now,' he said. Soldiers returning from the Donetsk front said Ukraine's biggest battlefield challenge remains unchanged: an enemy whose overwhelming manpower advantage allows for relentless assaults. Dmytro, a 35-year-old infantryman with a concussion, was evacuated to the 33rd Mechanized Brigade's aid point one recent night. He described a four-hour trench battle so fierce that he could not lift his head above the parapet to spot attacking Russian troops. But from the incoming fire, he said, he could tell they were advancing in small groups, methodically closing in. 'All the soldiers from my section of the trench were evacuated,' said Dmytro, who declined to give his last name per military rules. One of the clearest indications of the approaching fighting is a blue and yellow roadside sign marking the entrance to Donetsk from Dnipropetrovsk. Over three years of war, the site has become a symbol of Ukraine's resistance, with soldiers heading to battle signing and putting up Ukrainian flags around it. But now, with the front line just 12 miles away, the sign has been draped in a large net to protect it from drone strikes. In Mezhova, a small town in Dnipropetrovsk standing in the path of the Russian advance, the number of soldiers at times appears to outnumber civilians — they queue at the post office and crowd into cafes, and their olive-green pickups line the streets. The new reality weighs heaviest on refugees who fled the Donetsk region earlier in the war and resettled in Mezhova and nearby settlements. Over the past three years, the population has surged from 14,000 to 21,000 with their arrival. 'For so long, we thought this place was safe,' said Nelia Seimova, who moved to Mezhova in August after escaping Novohrodivka, which is now under Russian occupation. 'I had plans — buying a house, getting a job, sending my child to school. A normal life.' Now, Ms. Seimova, 33, is planning to move again, farther west. She knows from experience not to wait for the town to be hit with regular bombardment. 'We've been through this before,' she said, tears filling her eyes. Volodymyr Zrazhevsky, the mayor of Mezhova, is also worried about airstrikes, particularly glide bombs — powerful weapons carrying hundreds of pounds of explosives that Russia often uses to level towns ahead of ground assaults. Each day, Mr. Zrazhevsky studies a battlefield map marked with circles indicating which cities are within the range of the bombs as Russian forces advance. For now, Mezhova is safe. 'But we understand that if it happens — and it will at some point — we'll need to take drastic measures,' he said, possibly mandatory evacuations. Lists from East SOS, the group assisting refugees, show that some Mezhova residents have already started evacuating. On a recent afternoon in Pavlohrad, a city in Dnipropetrovsk where the group has set up a transit center, refugees who had just been evacuated from towns and villages near the Dnipropetrovsk-Donetsk boundary streamed in. All were bleary-eyed and some had faces streaked with soot from weeks of burning firewood to keep warm after attacks knocked out the power grid. Among them were elderly women bundled in thick woolen scarves, children in puffer coats and their parents in tears, uncertain of what the future would hold. Some in Ukraine believe the Trump administration's push for peace talks might freeze the front line, stopping the Russian advance. Mr. Zrazhevsky, the mayor of Mezhova — which means 'border line' in Ukrainian — clings to the hope that a cease-fire will spare his town from evacuation and turn it instead into the new 'eastern capital of Ukraine.' Mykhailo Afendikov, 52, who recently fled Komar, a village in Donetsk, after a glide bomb destroyed his home, struck a more somber tone. Even if the Russians do not capture Komar, he said, 'Where can I go back to? There's no house left.'
New York Times
21-02-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Russia Closes In on Another Ukrainian Region, Even as Peace Talks Pick Up
As the United States and Russia begin talks to end the war, Moscow is pressing its advantage on the battlefield by closing in on Dnipropetrovsk, one of Ukraine's largest regions and one with a major industrial base. Russian troops are now less than three miles from the region's border, and they have been pushing forward in recent days. Should the Russian Army cross from the eastern Donetsk region into Dnipropetrovsk, it would deal a big blow to morale in Ukraine — marking the fifth region to face partial Russian occupation and expanding Moscow's control over the war-torn country. It could also complicate Kyiv's position in territorial negotiations that might arise during peace talks. The Russian advance has already reshaped the landscape of Dnipropetrovsk's border area, once a quiet expanse of rolling fields and small villages. Now, trenches and anti-tank ditches line roads where convoys of armored vehicles pass. Tanks are concealed in tree lines. In villages closest to the front, soldiers have taken over buildings damaged by bombing or abandoned by locals. The Ukrainian backpedaling can be seen in the westward relocation of the aid station where medics of the 33rd Mechanized Brigade treat wounded soldiers. Late last year, they retreated three times in as many months, hauling medical beds and blood banks in trucks with them. The medics never thought they would be forced to entirely abandon Donetsk, an area where their unit had fought for a year, and retreat over its western boundary into Dnipropetrovsk. Earlier this year, that became a reality. Now, the medics fear Moscow's troops will soon follow. 'It always happens this way,' said Lt. Vitalii Voitiuk, head of the brigade's medical unit. 'When medical units start moving into an area, it means the front line isn't far behind.' He was speaking at his new aid station near the frontline where injured soldiers receive lifesaving care before being sent to a hospital farther behind the lines. Outside the aid station, the distant rumble of outgoing artillery fire echoed through the night. 'That alone tells you the war is getting closer,' said Mr. Voitiuk, a burly 34-year-old. Civilians, too, are bracing for the fight. Some have already evacuated — including those who fled the war in the east earlier and do not want to be caught in the violence again — while others are making plans to relocate. 'When we read the requests to evacuate people from Dnipropetrovsk, it felt terrifying,' said Bohdan Zahorulko, a worker at East SOS, a Ukrainian nongovernment organization helping internally displaced people. 'But it was also a wake-up call about the reality of the fight.' Russia's push toward Dnipropetrovsk, an area of more than three million people with major steel mills, builds on six months of rapid advances in Donetsk. Since August, its troops have captured an average of about 180 square miles of territory each month in Ukraine, nearly four times the size of San Francisco, according to the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based research company. Most of those gains were in Donetsk. In recent weeks, Russia's advance has slowed. Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military expert who recently returned from a research trip in eastern Ukraine, attributed the slowdown to bad weather hindering Russian mechanized assaults and airstrikes. He also noted Ukraine's effective use of drones to hit troops and armored vehicles. 'But drones can't hold territory,' said Lt. Col. Vadim Balyuk, commander of the Shkval Special Forces Assault Battalion in Ukraine's 59th Brigade. Speaking from a small wooden house in the border area, where he monitors live battlefield footage on screens, he said his unit's job is to do what drones cannot: secure control of villages and clear a path for Ukrainian infantry to move in. Colonel Balyuk said his unit had recently cleared two settlements of Russian forces, which could have been used to support their push toward Dnipropetrovsk. But he had no illusions that the fight was over. 'The enemy is just regrouping now,' he said. Soldiers returning from the Donetsk front said Ukraine's biggest battlefield challenge remains unchanged: an enemy whose overwhelming manpower advantage allows for relentless assaults. Dmytro, a 35-year-old infantryman with a concussion, was evacuated to the 33rd Mechanized Brigade's aid point one recent night. He described a four-hour trench battle so fierce that he could not lift his head above the parapet to spot attacking Russian troops. But from the incoming fire, he said, he could tell they were advancing in small groups, methodically closing in. 'All the soldiers from my section of the trench were evacuated,' said Dmytro, who declined to give his last name per military rules. One of the clearest indications of the approaching fighting is a blue and yellow roadside sign marking the entrance to Donetsk from Dnipropetrovsk. Over three years of war, the site has become a symbol of Ukraine's resistance, with soldiers heading to battle signing and putting up Ukrainian flags around it. But now, with the front line just 12 miles away, the sign has been draped in a large net to protect it from drone strikes. In Mezhova, a small town in Dnipropetrovsk standing in the path of the Russian advance, the number of soldiers at times appears to outnumber civilians — they queue at the post office and crowd into cafes, and their olive-green pickups line the streets. The new reality weighs heaviest on refugees who fled the Donetsk region earlier in the war and resettled in Mezhova and nearby settlements. Over the past three years, the population has surged from 14,000 to 21,000 with their arrival. 'For so long, we thought this place was safe,' said Nelia Seimova, who moved to Mezhova in August after escaping Novohrodivka, which is now under Russian occupation. 'I had plans — buying a house, getting a job, sending my child to school. A normal life.' Now, Ms. Seimova, 33, is planning to move again, farther west. She knows from experience not to wait for the town to be hit with regular bombardment. 'We've been through this before,' she said, tears filling her eyes. Volodymyr Zrazhevsky, the mayor of Mezhova, is also worried about airstrikes, particularly glide bombs — powerful weapons carrying hundreds of pounds of explosives that Russia often uses to level towns ahead of ground assaults. Each day, Mr. Zrazhevsky studies a battlefield map marked with circles indicating which cities are within the range of the bombs as Russian forces advance. For now, Mezhova is safe. 'But we understand that if it happens — and it will at some point — we'll need to take drastic measures,' he said, possibly mandatory evacuations. Lists from East SOS, the group assisting refugees, show that some Mezhova residents have already started evacuating. On a recent afternoon in Pavlohrad, a city in Dnipropetrovsk where the group has set up a transit center, refugees who had just been evacuated from towns and villages near the Dnipropetrovsk-Donetsk boundary streamed in. All were bleary-eyed and some had faces streaked with soot from weeks of burning firewood to keep warm after attacks knocked out the power grid. Among them were elderly women bundled in thick woolen scarves, children in puffer coats and their parents in tears, uncertain of what the future would hold. Some in Ukraine believe the Trump administration's push for peace talks might freeze the front line, stopping the Russian advance. Mr. Zrazhevsky, the mayor of Mezhova — which means 'border line' in Ukrainian — clings to the hope that a cease-fire will spare his town from evacuation and turn it instead into the new 'eastern capital of Ukraine.' Mykhailo Afendikov, 52, who recently fled Komar, a village in Donetsk, after a glide bomb destroyed his home, struck a more somber tone. Even if the Russians do not capture Komar, he said, 'Where can I go back to? There's no house left.'
