February 17, 2025
Exhausted, on the Defensive and at ‘Hell’s Gate’ in Ukraine

ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION, Ukraine — Below the quilt of darkness, leaning ahead underneath the load of packs and rifles, a squad of troopers walked alongside a muddy lane and slipped right into a village home.

They had been Ukrainian soldiers of the 117th Separate Mechanized Brigade, assembling for a final briefing and roll name a number of miles from Russia positions earlier than heading to the trenches on the entrance line. Stolid males in helmets and rubber boots, they listened in silence as an intelligence officer briefed them on a brand new route in to their positions.

“Morale is all proper,” mentioned the deputy battalion commander, who makes use of the decision signal Shira, standing close by to see the boys off. “However bodily we’re exhausted.”

Ukrainian troops alongside a lot of the 600-mile entrance line are formally in defensive mode. Solely within the southern area of Kherson are they nonetheless on the offensive in a tricky assault throughout the Dnipro River.

However the combating has not eased and Russian forces are actually on the offensive.

The seize of the city of Robotyne within the southeastern Zaporizhzhia area was so far as Ukrainian troops managed to advance of their summer time counteroffensive. No breakthrough occurred. Now, within the trenches round Robotyne, Russian items are attacking day by day. Ukrainian troops attempt to counterattack instantly in the event that they lose floor, commanders mentioned.

“It’s one thing like a recreation of Ping-Pong,” mentioned a Ukrainian Nationwide Guard platoon commander who makes use of the decision signal Planshet, which means “pill.” “There’s a portion of 100 to 200 meters of floor all the time being taken and retaken,” he mentioned.

Certainly, Ukrainian troopers and commanders interviewed in latest weeks alongside a broad stretch of the central and japanese entrance mentioned that Russian assaults had been so intense that working close to the frontline has by no means been so harmful.

Russia has in latest days turned its focus to bombing Ukraine’s huge cities to put on down civilians; for weeks its floor forces have been mounting assaults to claw again territory misplaced final summer time and to grab long-prized Ukrainian redoubts alongside the japanese entrance.

Properly accustomed to Russian artillery fireplace, troopers mentioned that since March they’d suffered the extra devastating energy of glide bombs, half-ton explosives unleashed from planes that smash via underground bunkers.

“They might ship them two by two by two, eight in an hour,” mentioned a 27-year-old soldier often known as Package, of the 14th Chervona Kalyna Nationwide Guard Brigade. Like others interviewed, Package recognized himself by his name signal, in accordance with army protocol. “It feels like a jet coming down on you,” he mentioned, “like hell’s gate.”

The destruction wrought by glide bombs is seen in cities and villages close to the entrance line. The city of Orikhiv, about 12 miles north of Robotyne, as soon as served as a command middle for the counteroffensive. Now it’s an empty shell, the primary avenue abandoned, the college and different buildings break up asunder by huge bomb craters.

A lone workman, Valera, was driving a bicycle via the city. He mentioned he had stayed regardless of the heavy bombardment as a result of he had paid work, fixing turbines. He lived off humanitarian help and was feeding 20 stray cats at his residence, he mentioned.

Troopers moved cautiously within the space, largely dwelling in basements and staying undercover, out of sight.

That’s as a result of the most recent menace is Russia’s use of F.P.V. kamikaze drones, which has compelled Ukrainian troopers largely to desert automobiles in frontline areas and function on foot.

An affordable industrial drone, the F.P.V. — for first individual view — has turn into the most recent weapon of the second within the Ukrainian struggle. It will probably fly as quick as a automobile, carries a deadly load of explosives and is guided to its goal by a soldier sitting in a bunker a number of miles away.

Each the Russian and Ukrainian armies are utilizing them to hunt and assault targets as a result of they lower out the delay of relaying again coordinates and requesting artillery strikes. Ukrainian troopers mentioned they typically use the drones as a substitute of artillery as a result of shells had been more and more in brief provide and the drones are an inexpensive, fast weapon for assaults on close by Russian automobiles, bunkers and infantry.

Army items from either side publish movies on-line of their profitable strikes, which finish with a scrambled black display screen in the mean time of detonation. A number of Ukrainian drone items allowed journalists from The New York Occasions to observe reside operations from positions close to the entrance line as they tracked Russian troopers and attacked chosen targets.

One unit confirmed movies of successful that destroyed Russian surveillance cameras and an antenna on an workplace constructing. One other focused a Russian bunker in a tree line, though the drone was deflected by Russian digital jamming earlier than influence.

Just one in a number of drones hits its goal, and lots of are misplaced to jamming and different interference, troopers mentioned.

For these on the receiving finish of F.P.V. drones, defending and supplying the entrance line have turn into more and more dangerous.

“This can be very harmful to go by automobile,” mentioned a Ukrainian Nationwide Guardsman, who makes use of the decision signal Varvar. Males of his unit mentioned that since September they’d been leaving their armored automobiles and strolling in six miles to positions. “You may solely go in on foot,” Varvar mentioned.

The boys of the 117th Brigade, who had been deploying to the entrance line within the Zaporizhzhia area on a latest night time, confronted a four-mile hike via rain and dirt, the intelligence commander mentioned. In the event that they had been wounded and captured, Russian troops would execute them, he warned them.

The lengthy, arduous slog to hold in ammunition and meals to produce troops and to hold out the wounded was one purpose Ukraine couldn’t maintain its counteroffensive, an organization commander, Adolf, 23, mentioned.

Ambulances and provide automobiles got here underneath fireplace from kamikaze drones so typically that his unit stopped utilizing them, resorting as a substitute to a four-wheeled buggy that volunteer engineers rigged as much as carry a stretcher. The buggy was hidden underneath some timber beside his command publish a number of miles from the entrance line.

Ukrainian items are dealing out the identical therapy with F.P.V. drones on Russian strains and say they had been the primary to begin utilizing drones to assault targets. However the Russians have copied the tactic and flooded frontline areas with drones in latest weeks, to deadly impact, Ukrainian troopers and commanders mentioned.

“My impression is Russia is concerned with drones on the state degree,” the soldier often known as Package mentioned, however in distinction, Ukraine nonetheless largely relied on volunteers and civilian donors for its drone program. “My sense,” he mentioned, “is the federal government must be doing extra.”

The Russians had been using subterfuge as properly, Planshet mentioned, enjoying tapes of gunfire on drones to make Ukrainian troopers suppose they had been underneath assault, depart the bunkers and reveal their positions.

Some members of his platoon mentioned the Russians used drones to drop smoke grenades into their trenches. One soldier, who makes use of the decision signal Medic, mentioned it appeared like a form of tear fuel.

“It causes a really sturdy ache within the eyes and a hearth, like a chunk of coal, in your throat and you can’t breathe,” he mentioned.

A number of troopers donned fuel masks to deal with the boys affected, however when two males within the platoon crawled from the bunker to flee the fuel, they had been killed by grenades dropped from Russian drones hovering above, troopers mentioned.

The toll is heavy for all items alongside the entrance. Virtually everybody has been wounded or survived a slim escape in latest months, troopers mentioned.

“We’re wanting folks,” mentioned an intelligence commander of the 117th Brigade who makes use of the decision signal Banderas, after the actor. “We now have weapons however not sufficient males.”

But many stay optimistic. Farther east within the Donetsk area, Maj. Serhii Betz, a battalion commander of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, set out earlier than daybreak on a latest day, driving down muddy roads rutted with ice to test on his drone items near the entrance line. He invited New York Occasions journalists alongside.

The groups work underground, in bunkers lined with tree trunks and coated with earth. On a pc monitor, the commander switched on a livestream drone feed from a neighboring brigade the place a battle was unfolding.

“Russian tanks getting into the village,” a commander mentioned over a walkie-talkie. “Is the whole lot prepared?” the key requested the drone group. “A tank is a cool goal to destroy; let’s assist our brothers.”

Mice scurried via their bunker, rustling in a garbage bag, because the newly deployed group, contemporary from coaching, fiddled with wiring and switches to get an F.P.V. airborne over the Russians’ positions for his or her first strike.

They had been too sluggish, and their first two flights crashed, downed by Russian digital jamming.

However the main was happy. “We’re creating,” he mentioned.

Olha Konovalova contributed reporting from the Zaporizhzhia area, and Christiaan Triebert from Auriac-du-Périgord, France.