KIEV Russian forces were so close that Boghdan, a Ukrainian soldier with the 79th Air Assault Brigade, could see the enemy digging in.
Digging is the order of the day on this desolate stretch of parched land in eastern California. Ukraine to avoid dying. Boghdan wants the Russians dead. Then, with a rocket launcher slung over his shoulder, he rose over the sandbags lining his trench and fired. The digging stopped. Moments later, Russian soldiers fired a volley of machine gun fire. Then everything was quiet.
“We silenced them,” Boghdan said with satisfaction as he headed deeper into the underground bunker. “I just needed my coffee.”
Ukrainian soldier controls a bunker in Ukraine’s Donbass Photo: TYLER HICKS / NYT
Such is life in what the Ukrainian military calls Position Zero the furthest point on the front line, with the Russians less than 300 meters away.
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Trapped in mud and dung, in caves of frozen earth that serve as beds for mushy clay, there are many ways to kill and die. Russian helicopters frequently attack Ukrainian trenches. The Russians retaliated with heavy artillery positioned miles from the targets and sent small groups of soldiers to attempt to infiltrate the trenches under cover of night.
Powerful drones circle at high altitude and conduct surveillance, and smaller UAVs, adapted quadcopters, drop improvised explosives over the trenches.
Russian attacks may involve armored vehicles and tanks, or they may come in waves of foot soldiers attempting to assault a trench.
The Ukrainians counter with force. And in this bag at the front, near the destroyed city of Marinka, in the region DonetskFor a year they repelled all attempts by the Russians to gain ground.
The New York Times was granted rare access to a meeting with soldiers from the 79th Brigade at the easternmost end of the front line to better understand how the war feels for Ukrainian soldiers positioned close enough to the Russians to see them in Having their field of vision across the devastated Ukrainian landscapes they are determined to defend. Soldiers’ full names are omitted for security reasons.
Despite intense fighting during the winter, the Russia has only conquered about 1,000 square kilometers in eastern Ukraine since September, according to a report released in February by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research institution in Washington.
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Visiting the trenches makes it clear why breaking through entrenched and fortified lines is so difficult. However, maintaining the position also comes with a huge cost. Two days before the Times visit, the 79th Brigade had taken heavy casualties, the toll of relentless fighting clearly visible in their weary, weary eyes.
The soldiers said they were ready to die. It was a war of survival, they claimed, not just for them but for their entire country. The 79th is one of Ukraine’s elite units, and its forces fought against the Russians in steppes, forests and ruined cities. Now his soldiers are ordered to stand about 25 kilometers from the city of Donetsk, which has been a stronghold of Russia and its allies since 2014.
Members of the 79th Air Assault Brigade in a trench area in Marinka, eastern Ukraine Photo: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Today, the town of Marinka is just a dot on the map, completely deserted by the approximately 9,000 residents who lived there before the war. Marinka has long been on the list of places devastated by Russian forces, with buildings either completely in ruins or reduced to hollow structures of charred concrete. But for the Ukrainians, the defense of Marinka continues.
The Russians, unable to break through Ukrainian lines in the region for more than a year, recently revised their tactics and called on small attack groups to attack the Ukrainian defenses, according to a Russian manual captured from the Ukrainians Breaking through points that they can exploit.
The manual describes how assault platoons consisting of 12 to 15 soldiers can be divided into tactical groups of up to 3 soldiers, supported by additional firepower to infiltrate a Ukrainian trench.
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Ukrainian soldiers called these groups “meat” because of the high rate at which they were killed.
Ukrainian fighters who witnessed these attacks up close said the Russians would often send a first wave of infantry to attack a trench, knowing the soldiers would likely be killed. Russian sentries have noted the firing positions of the Ukrainians and are firing mortars and artillery against these positions. A second wave of Russian infantry then advances and tries to infiltrate the trench.
It’s a brutal tactic familiar to millions of soldiers who holed up during World War I over a century ago. As a French officer, Captain André Laffargue, noted in a pamphlet entitled The Attack in Trench Warfare at the time, storming welldefended trenches comes at a tremendous cost. “Infantry units vanish like straws in the cauldron.”
To reach the zero line outside of Marinka, Ukrainian soldiers must traverse a network of rear trenches, cross tracks cleared for tanks and level villages.
The trenches are built with curves to contain explosions in case a mortar or shell explodes inside. Nets covered with branches are installed over the head in specific places to hide their outlines. Ukrainian soldiers, well versed in geography, have constant sentries on standby for threats.
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In quiet moments — and even in the most fortified corners of Ukraine, much time is spent waiting for the next outbreak of violence — soldiers eat canned meals and tend to socalled “Ukrainian war cats,” who patrol the trenches and rid them of rats. .
While the line stretches some 1,000 kilometers, both armies have dug thousands of kilometers of trenches dug in installed squadrons to ensure soldiers can retreat to safer positions if a net falls.
In addition to smaller attacks, Russia has been trying for weeks to break through the Ukrainian lines with attacks involving more forces, including columns of tanks. Shortly after the Times visit, reconnaissance units from the 79th Brigade spotted Russian armored and armored movements nearby.
The Russians attempted to line the trenches around their flanks to “launch a massive attack”, according to a brigade statement. But they were eventually caught, and Ukrainian paratroopers armed with Javelin antitank missiles damaged several Russian armored vehicles and infantry fighting vehicles. The destruction was recorded on videos later released by the brigade.
In the trenches, the soldiers know the Russians will advance further. And they say they are ready for the day of the Ukrainian attack. / TRANSLATION BY GUILHERME RUSSO