After a few hours of passing through Kyiv to attend a funeral, Nick can’t wait. He doesn’t even have time to drink a coffee. He has to run to his truck and drive the more than 700 kilometers to Kramatorsk, where his team of doctors and nurses are waiting for him. The counter-offensive that Ukraine launched at the beginning of June along more than a thousand kilometers of its extensive territory does not give them rest. Every meter they take back requires a great sacrifice of the troops, including in the number of wounded. And dead
Minutes ago they warned him that they have to support a new offensive in the vicinity of Bakhmut that seeks to regain control of some of the hills surrounding this town in Donbass, or the ruins that remain after the fateful battle that took place end in May in favor of the Russians, not without first leaving it devastated. In recent weeks the Ukrainians have taken the initiative and are seeking to surround Russian troops within the urban perimeter. “The Russian forces are trapped inside”, confirmed last week the commander of the ground forces of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Sirski, who pointed out that the Ukrainians had the access routes to the city.
Undoubtedly a significant – and morally symbolic – advance for the Ukrainian troops, although, like everything related to the counter-offensive, it comes at a great cost. “It is very painful to see the sacrifice behind everything our men are doing… But above all it is painful to see that people expect quick results without understanding that every meter of land is recovered with blood”, explains Tatiana , a young volunteer from Nick’s team who helps with evacuation tasks in this region of the country.
“But we have no other option if we want to take back the territories”, adds this 32-year-old woman, who has spent the last 10 months supporting the population and the soldiers. Tatiana’s vision is shared by different men and women along the front. “When the situation is very hard, I think of the joy with which the people in towns like Izium received us when they were liberated. They hugged us, they thanked us”, explains Oleksandr, 33, who enlisted in the army for the first time in 2014.
“We can’t abandon them”, he assured one afternoon at the beginning of June in the town of Yompil, under the constant siege of Russian artillery.
The comments that the counteroffensive is going slower than expected, that the advances in these five weeks are few (although in reality the Institute of War Studies of the United States calculates that it is 253 square kilometers, almost the same as the Russians resumed in their winter offensive, which extended into May) are echoed on the battlefield. And they even cause frustration among the soldiers who collide every day with the difficulties specific to each front.
An example is what is happening in Klishchiivka, seven kilometers southwest of Bakhmut, where Ukrainian troops have managed to take control of some sectors but Russian forces are fighting back with great intensity. Artillery falls non-stop. Soldiers who manage to take control of nearby positions say that trenches are often full of corpses.
Some belong to Ukrainians who died in combat months ago and others to Russians, who died in recent days. The continuous artillery attacks do not allow them to carry out the evacuation. Added to the stench arising from the decomposition of the bodies by the heat is that Russian soldiers leave explosives or grenades inside the dead. Another risk for the Ukrainians, who often have to spend nights and days in these trenches, together with the inert bodies of the fallen.
A few days ago a doctor, who today fights with the army on another of Bakhmut’s flanks and who identifies himself under the pseudonym Ocell, explained that it was extremely frustrating and painful for them to have to recover the remains of comrades who had been dead for months back that they were encountering as they advanced. “Every time we find the body of a Russian soldier we treat it as if it were an explosive; we have had colleagues who have been injured moving these bodies”, he explained.
He also explained that during the last few weeks the days are intense and every mission announced at the front is surrounded by the certainty that one of the comrades will be injured or die. “You never know when it will be your turn”, confessed the Bird, who like others at the front draws attention to the fact that one of the differences between Ukrainians and Russians is the value of the human being. “For us, every man counts. They are our treasure. For them, no. Many are sent to die.”
Dmitró and his team’s van is hidden in some bushes on the road that leads to Oríkhiv, on the Zaporizhia front. Before the large-scale invasion he worked as a systems engineer and currently coordinates a drone unit. “They must understand that it is a slow process. In every corner of the territory we try to find the weak point of the enemy, but it is a very painful process that has a high cost”, he explains.
His work gives him a better idea, at least better than other soldiers, of the reality facing the Ukrainian army in these vast steppes where the only geographical protection is narrow lines of trees that divide the plains The geography does not change until you reach the target cities of the Ukrainian forces, such as Melitopol, Berdiansk or Mariupol. “We only encounter obstacles there. They are clearly watching us when we go forward, because we have no protection. We are out in the open.”
This broad battlefront, which stretches across the length and breadth of Zaporizhia province, remained relatively static after the first months of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Since then, the Russians have had to erect a sophisticated and long line of defense, divided into several stages, which makes every meter gained by the Ukrainians count as a small great victory. Added to this are large mined areas that make traveling through these fields a lottery.
In an interview attended by President Volodymyr Zelensky a few days ago on CNN, he repeated that if the shipment of weapons by the West had not been so delayed, they could have started earlier and the Russian army would not have had time to prepare – know how he did it. In the past he also acknowledged that the counter-offensive is slow, but in an interview he did on June 29 with La Vanguardia, along with other Spanish media, he assured that he would prefer it to be delayed for several months if this prevented the loss of human lives . The head of the General Staff, Valeri Zalujni, claims nevertheless that everything is going according to the planned plan.
“Of course we are going slower than expected. But what lies ahead is hell. Every step is difficult”, explained Vitali, 36 years old, who is in charge of an artillery unit near Oríkhiv. The difficulties of the struggle that the soldiers talk about along the front is reflected in dozens of videos published by the different brigades and circulating on social networks, including YouTube.
In a meeting held in the house they have as the base of the unit, several kilometers from the front, where the artillery he coordinates moves, Vitali explained that at the beginning they thought that by firing a lot of artillery they could cover the advance of mechanized and infantry units, but the problems they encountered along the way were enormous. In recent weeks they have changed their strategy.
They work in small infantry units that aim to find the enemy’s weak points. His strategy is to surprise. “We know we don’t have planes, we know we don’t have all the weapons and men we need, but we keep moving forward. It’s difficult and expensive, but we do it,” says this man who acknowledges another reality that is talked about quietly in Ukraine. At least in the vicinity of the battlefront. Many of the men who have just joined the army, and who are experiencing for the first time the reality of the battle front, have had more difficulty in adapting to the cruelty of this war.
“It is not the same to be trained for two or three months in Europe, no matter how good the training, than to fight in these circumstances. It has been hard for everyone at the time and you have to keep learning”, confirms Vitali, who says that as the days pass, the forces are getting better. And the strategy has been redefined. But he does not deny that during the first days of the counteroffensive there were mistakes caused by the inexperience of some. This added even more drama when trying to move forward.
“It is normal that these things happen. A counteroffensive is the joint work of many units and finding the right coordination is not always easy. But we are already achieving it”, explained this man in mid-June. In a message sent this week, he confirmed again that little by little his unit was making progress. It also confirmed that there were many brigades left to go into action, as they are still training far from the battlefield.
The Deputy Minister of Defence, Hanna Mailar, who continuously gives information on the progress of the counter-offensive, has assured that “the most important blow” must come. And this is an idea that is repeated again and again among the Ukrainian authorities and military. And the Chief of Staff, Valeri Zalujni, says that everything is going according to plan.
In another of the towns near the Zaporizhia front, Prokrovske, another soldier who also identifies himself as Vitali took advantage of his day off on June 21 to do some shopping and drink coffee. He is part of the special forces, he says, and cannot give any details of his job. But he does recognize that the Russian defenses and trenches are well built and that even the enemy seems better prepared than months ago.
“They continue to have a lot of problems, but we have noticed that they have learned from the mistakes they have made in the past. We can’t think that they are all inexperienced and sent to die”, explains this man, who is confident that with the passage of weeks Ukraine will find the hole through which to advance and take back the occupied territories.
“We have to be strong and keep going. It is not easy, but as soldiers we must understand that our commanders have a much more complex picture of what is happening on the ground. We only see what is in front of us”, concluded Vitali when he finished drinking his coffee. Even then, the soldier had opened up a little more to the conversation and recognized how hard this war is while still saying: “We must fight and recover what is ours”.
