The Ukrainian soldiers hid among the trees, buried in hobbit-like holes under the snow. But the Russian drones were still buzzing overhead.
In the past two days, the troops had managed to shoot down six of these planes – often full of explosives. The team medic gave me a pair of wings as a souvenir.
Shells also fell in this wooded camp at the front. Three men had been injured by shrapnel and the rear wheels of a truck had been ripped off.
Several trees bore the scars of war with splintered trunks and torn branches. “Now we’ve got plenty of fuel for the fire,” joked a soldier wearing a fleece over his camouflage gear.
But then, just after breakfast on Monday, an enemy drone evaded all their efforts to bring it down and dropped a bomb squarely on one of the Ukrainians’ prized US howitzers. The long barrel was ripped open near the base, the aiming mechanism ruined – and so after a week in this front-line position, firing up to 150 rounds a day, the unit hastily moved two miles away to collect their remaining ones to protect two field guns.
The team’s medic showed a set of Russian wings from the drone they encountered earlier that morning
The only way for Ukrainians to escape from the Russian drone or the winter cold is to hide in the dugout
In the past year of Vladimir Putin’s war, they swept more than 100 miles east, from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, to their current position to engage enemy forces in occupied Luhansk
The war in Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more
“It’s difficult to keep moving and digging new shelters in this solid winter soil,” admitted Vitaly, their 23-year-old commander, as his men packed up their few belongings and the ammunition that was scattered in the snow and mud around us .
“Now we have to move again. Go to the new place, dig new shelters. We will try to get closer to reach the enemy with our shells. We can target anything: tanks, infantry, drones. Sometimes we know the results, but not often.”
Earlier this week I spent two days with the 76 soldiers of this Ukrainian artillery team. In the past year of Vladimir Putin’s war, they swept more than 100 miles east, from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, to their current position to engage enemy forces in occupied Luhansk.
Distant explosions – the drumbeat of battle – echoed across the frozen landscape. Once, while we were talking, the men suddenly fell silent. “You have to constantly listen to your surroundings. Where are the sounds coming from?’ someone told me later.
Heavy snow fell on the first day. Next, it turned to mud and mud. My hands froze both days as a biting wind swept across fields of unharvested sunflowers, their black heads drooping in mourning at this terrible war.
On the stove in the makeshift kitchen, a pan was filled with snow that was being melted into water. A middle-aged soldier told me how much he wished he were home. “I’m from Odessa and it’s 4 degrees there,” he said.
But for this group of Ukrainian brothers there was no respite from their relentless mission to move, dig new bunkers, fire on their Russian enemies, and then move on. “It’s a war, so what can you do?” said one. “It feels like a perpetual migration with the ditch.”
With two volunteers I drove to their frontline position – some 20 miles from the recaptured city of Kupiansk, now under heavy Russian bombardment. They provided a generator and supplies of groceries, toilet paper and wet wipes.
Our journey was complicated: many bridges were destroyed and a dam was blown up. At the edge of a broken crossing, I saw five men fishing through the thick ice below me.
We stopped at a field hospital to take medicine and clean clothes to the men of the unit who had been injured in the recent bombing. A young soldier collected them, discolored fingers sticking out of a bandaged arm as he showed us a wound on the back of his head.
Earlier this week I spent two days with the 76 soldiers of this Ukrainian artillery team
Distant explosions – the drumbeat of battle – echoed across the frozen landscape. Once, while we were talking, the men suddenly fell silent. “You have to constantly listen to your surroundings. Where are the sounds coming from?’ someone told me later
Several trees bore the scars of war with splintered trunks and torn branches. “Now we have plenty of wood for the fire,” joked one man
We stopped at a field hospital to take medicine and clean clothes to the men of the unit who had been injured in the recent bombing
The men loathe the Russian invasion and have a craving for freedom
No wonder the troops faced with such difficult frontline conditions all said they were motivated by patriotism and a desperate desire to protect their people
For this band of Ukrainian brothers, there was no respite from their relentless mission to move, dig new bunkers, fire on their Russian enemies, and then move on again. “It’s a war, so what can you do?” said one. “It feels like eternal migration with a ditch”
It was a desolate place in winter: desolate-looking villages dotted the open, flat fields—many of them mined—and lined with tangled rows of trees. In such a thicket we found our battery
Then, as we turned off the icy track and crossed snowy fields to our destination, we passed two self-propelled artillery pieces that had been crushed into heaps of burned and twisted metal. “They are ours,” said Andriy, one of the volunteers.
It was a desolate place in winter: desolate-looking villages dotted the open, flat fields—many of them mined—and lined with tangled rows of trees. In such a thicket we found our battery.
After we parked the car, I met a soldier who was digging a new bunker. Even the commander, who joined a military academy as a teenager and took charge of the unit five months ago, told me he was digging his own holes in the ground to survive.
The men explained how they use some explosives to blast off frozen topsoil. After digging out their burrows, they cover the roof with chopped logs, cardboard packaging made from shells, plastic sheeting, and finally soil.
“If you want to live, you have to dig,” says Ivan, 37, father of two small children, who first joined the army eight years ago. “I’m a good digger because I’m a builder. If I had to choose between a spade and a rifle, I would definitely choose the spade.”
Still, he admitted their nomadic lifestyle was tough. “You just settle down, build a little kitchen, dig up the shelters and suddenly you have to leave. You can’t really get used to it.”
He has not been able to visit his family for five months. “My wife misses me so much, she wants me to be home. I call her every day,’ he said. “Good thing it’s not 1943 when you had to write letters to your family – at least we can video chat.”
Ivan admitted that he was lucky to survive the final attack as he was close to the howitzer that was aimed. “When it hit us, I was in the dugout to get a cigarette,” he said. “So you see, smoking can actually save your life.”
This soldier, a former infantryman, admitted that it was easier in the artillery since they didn’t really see the Russians. “Mentally it’s a lot tougher in the infantry. You have to kill people face to face, but here you just shoot and you don’t see anyone.’ Or as one of his comrades later put it: “Before the war we saw Russians alive. After the war we only see them dead.”
As I walked among the trees, I saw men chopping wood for fires. Piles of wood had been cut with chainsaws. It looked almost like a forest camp – except for the clusters of unfired shells and artillery snouts sticking out from under the nets.
Chimneys pierced through the snow and belched smoke. Descending some rough-hewn steps, I found a burrow for eight soldiers that was surprisingly warm. “We have food, internet, water – who could ask for more?” said a soldier, laughing.
The artillery team hides in trees next to frozen fields while searching for the enemy
“These are antiques,” said Mykhailo, 41, a businessman before the mobilization last June and one of the commanders
“It’s difficult to keep moving and digging new shelters in this solid winter soil,” admitted Vitaly, their 23-year-old commander, as his men packed up their few belongings and the ammunition that was scattered in the snow and mud around us
The Ukrainian soldiers said that while they have enough shorter-range shells that can fly about five miles, they only have nine longer-range shells that can hit both targets 25 miles away and anti-aircraft systems
Before the war, this man – also the father of a small child – made heating briquettes. But he was mobilized after the full-scale invasion. “When the heavy beating starts, we’ll hide here in the dugout,” he said. “But we always have a sense of danger.”
Earlier I met an infantryman who told me that his comrades had been faced with increasing numbers of enemy sabotage and reconnaissance units in recent weeks. He surmised that this preceded the expected Russian offensive. “They’re getting closer, sneaking up on weak spots to break through. We’re in the forest, so the fights can get very close over 30 or 40 meters,” he told me.
In this war, artillery has become strategically important after an era of US-led conflicts when control of the skies made ground fire less effective.
“Artillery was the dominant weapon on the battlefields of both WWI and WWII, but then it played a lesser role in Vietnam and Iraq,” said Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at St Andrews University in Scotland .
“But in this war neither side controls the air, tanks seem so vulnerable and progress so difficult. This means that artillery has become more important and the artillery duel is enormously important.”
But Vitaly, the formidable young commander of one of Ukraine’s largest batteries, said his troops lacked adequate artillery after suffering “many casualties” at the hands of Russia’s Lancets, a sophisticated new “loitering” drone with a 25-mile range. “We want Britain to send us more guns,” he told me.
Later, their quartermaster explained how they started the war with Soviet-made Giatsints, which were heavier, more difficult to calibrate, but sturdier than their US-made Excaliburs. “You can hit them with a hammer and they would still work,” Anton said.
“With the Americans, you have to take care of them more, which is difficult in these conditions. The Excaliburs can fire four times a minute, while the Giatsints fire six or seven times a minute. But of course the American ones are better.”
Other soldiers said many of their donated grenades were very old and showed me pictures of an American missile from 1958 – when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House and Elvis Presley had released Jailhouse Rock.
“These are antiques,” said Mykhailo, 41, a businessman before the mobilization last June and one of the commanders. “But the problem isn’t the age of the guns, it’s the firing range. The older weapons are short-ranged. We need to get closer and become like the infantry – and the closer we get, the more dangerous it gets. It’s like a suicide squad. If we get that close, even the mortar can reach us.’
The Ukrainian soldiers said that while they have enough shorter-range shells that can fly about five miles, they only have nine longer-range shells that can hit both targets 25 miles away and anti-aircraft systems.
Many of the men told me they had lost friends fighting in that war, and all admitted to being scared at times. “After all, we’re human,” said one.
When we left, the volunteers drove back to Kharkiv a soldier who went to sleep for the night after being refused permission to see his pregnant wife. He bought her a large bouquet of flowers and a teddy bear in the national colors of blue and yellow.
These volunteers – who work out of a cafe that has been converted into a field kitchen serving 1,500 meals a day – have accompanied this unit as it advances across the region, visiting the men up to three times a week with supplies to keep morale up to maintain.
Among the chefs peeling mounds of beetroot, potatoes, and onions, I found a man who had served in the Russian army during Chechnya’s brutal war, which was notorious for atrocities.
“I knew what would happen if they came here,” said Adalyat Vezirov, 47, a builder originally from Azerbaijan. “I heard what the soldiers talked about when they went there, a lot of murders and rapes. I knew it would be the same here.”
No wonder the troops, faced with such difficult conditions on the front lines, all said they were motivated by patriotism and a desperate desire to protect their people, coupled with a revulsion at the Russian invasion and a fervent desire for freedom.
“I don’t hate the Russians – I just want them off the political map,” said one. “My conscience is clear. I defend my country and my family. I fight for freedom.”
But Anton, the 29-year-old quartermaster from Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, underscored the strange complexity of this epochal conflict. As we sat in an underground burrow at the front, he told me how his Russian-speaking grandmother, with her traditional poetry, inspired him so much to love Ukraine that he joined the pro-democracy protests that led to the 2014 Russian attack on Crimea triggered.
On the stove in the makeshift kitchen, a pan was filled with snow that was being melted into water
Even the commander, who joined a military academy as a teenager and took charge of the unit five months ago, told me he was digging his own holes in the ground to survive
At the same time, his own mother misses the Soviet Union and admires the despotic Putin.
“We have many conflicts because I am a patriot and they are pro-Russian,” he said. “Now she doesn’t know what to think. She tells me ‘the most important thing is that you stay alive, everything else is nothing.’
He shrugged and added that he was so used to the conditions that if the war dragged on for many years, he “may even miss it.”
Then came the successful drone attack – and the dutiful men of this artillery battery packed up their missiles. They moved on with their weapons to dig a new maze of holes for survival in another frigid patch of forest on the front lines of this terrible war.
Additional reporting: Dzvinka Pinchuk