"The young soldiers are like a sponge, they absorb everything, but they need time to be cultivated," Oleksandr explains. The high casualty rate also robs the Ukrainian military of a chance to build up an experienced officer corps. He worries young volunteers are being shipped out without preparation. At most, they got three weeks of training before shipping out.įront line fighter Oleksandr, 33, a former construction engineer, now works setting and clearing mines. A handful received military training decades earlier, but most were fresh recruits fired up by patriotism. The entire platoon is comprised of volunteers who also enlisted in March. ![]() Today he is responsible for more than 260 infantry soldiers in an all-new platoon at the front lines. His academy let him graduate early, in March, so he could enlist in the Ukrainian military. ![]() Oleg was finishing his semester at a Kyiv military academy when Russian soldiers invaded in February and set their sights on taking over Ukraine's capital. If I show fear, my deputies will be scared as well." Young volunteers and recruits often enter the war with little training or preparation "Of course, I am afraid of death," Oleg says. But Ukrainian battalion members say they are also increasingly staffed by exhausted soldiers with a constant shortage of military experience, artillery and ammunition. The men profess strong dedication to protecting their country. The week after, they withdrew from its sister city, Lysychansk.Īs the war in Ukraine enters its fifth month, with no end in sight, these soldiers' experience at the front lines provide a glimpse into what a protracted war with Russia could look like. On June 24, Ukraine's defense ministry said it had been forced to withdraw its troops from Sievierodonetsk. "The specter of war stays with us," he tells NPR. They all requested NPR use only their first names for security reasons, to prevent them from being identified or located by Russian forces.įront line fighter Sasha, 39, a former solar panel installer, spent months living in underground dugouts and basements in Sievierodonetsk, running through forests outside the city on eight-hour shifts. NPR interviewed Oleg and a half-dozen soldiers in early July, just two days after they came off a brutal three-month stint fending off the Russian military from the strategic Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk. But now they must continue to survive while outgunned and outmanned by Russia. "That was how they eliminated our units."Īgainst all odds, Ukraine's army has managed to hold off a full-scale Russian invasion. "The Russians have so much ammunition, they can afford to shell us continuously, and we do not have enough ammunition to suppress their fire," says Oleg, 21, an infantry platoon commander among those retreating. Muhammed Enes Yildirim / Anadolu Agency via Getty Imagesīoth sides stand to lose something, Horowitz said.Frontline fighter Oleg, 21 years old and a new military academy graduate, talks about the Russian invasion near Dnipro, Ukraine, on July 7.ĭNIPRO, Ukraine - Under the hot sun and relentless Russian artillery, 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers painstakingly drive their vehicles single-file along the Siverskyi Donets river, beating a retreat from eastern Ukraine as Russian troops fire at them. ![]() Search and rescue teams work in boats to evacuate residents from a flooded part of Kherson on Wednesday. ![]() Some Russian pro-war military bloggers suggested that destroying the dam would benefit Ukraine, because Russian-controlled areas would suffer the most, disrupting mine barriers and front-line positions.Īnalysts did agree that the entrenched defenses Russia had built up for months would be hit, but they didn’t see a clear motive for Ukraine. Russia said Ukraine destroyed the dam to distract attention from its “choking” counteroffensive, while Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said it may let Kyiv move its units from the Kherson front line to where they were more needed. government has intelligence that is leaning toward Russia’s being behind the attack, according to two U.S. Ukrainian officials agreed, with presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak accusing Russia of having blown up the dam with an “obvious” goal: “to create obstacles for the offensive actions of the armed forces.” “By blowing up the dam, Russia would be removing one key offensive vector from the equation,” Horowitz said.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |