On the eastern front, MacWBishop embeds with an elite Ukrainian military unit and witnesses what one soldier describes as 'hell on earth.'
Ukraine won’t stop fighting. But it is sacrificing thousands of its finest soldiers and still losing ground. It cannot win the war without game-changing foreign-military assistance: American heavy artillery, Danish anti-ship missiles, German air-defense systems — these are slowly making their way to the battlefield.
Mace knows that speed counts here, and he weaves in and out of the anti-tank barricades that are strewn along the roads, gunning the engine as soon as we clear the concrete blocks and berms of dirt. I’m glad he knows which roads are mined. As we careen down a hill toward a crossroads surrounded by a scattering of farmhouses, I see a Ukrainian Akatsiya self-propelled artillery gun dashing toward the T-intersection ahead of us. It looks like we will get there at the same time.
We fly through the intersection ahead of the Akatsiya, and its crew doesn’t spare us a glance. They’re intent on their own survival, and making the cover of the tree line.Washington Post When we are back in the trees I relax slightly, but Mace doesn’t slow down. He has a destination in mind. What these two places have in common is they are on the Russian-occupied side of the winding Seversky Donets River, the main natural barrier to the enemy’s advance. There are tens of thousands of Russian soldiers with hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles attacking here, assaulting in a vast crescent surrounding Severodonetsk, one of the largest cities in Donbas that remained in Ukrainian hands before the invasion began in February.
There’s a sudden pop as a cluster munition bursts over the battlefield, leaving behind a smattering of dark puffs as submunitions rain down on the village’s defenders. It’s followed by another seconds later. The nearby city of Kramatorsk, which held 150,000 inhabitants before the war, is a ghost town. Only a few old people remain; a handful of shops open for a few hours in the daytime to provide food and groceries to the soldiers passing through and the few locals who still remain. A ballistic missile hit a train station there, crowded with refugees, killing 59 people in early April, and wounded more than 100, according to Ukrainian defense officials.
“The enemy intends to get to the administrative border of Luhansk” with the current offensive, Motuzianyk says. “The enemy intends to take full control of the region.”“Clearly the Russian leadership demanded changes to Russian tactics to achieve victories, and they are doing what they must to achieve that,” Motuzianyk says. “They are destroying communities and wiping us off the Earth without regard for civilians.”, soldiers relax in the yard, grabbing whatever rest they can between missions.
“These guys shouldn’t have had to fight for eight years,” the old soldier grimaces in dismay as he watches the young paratroopers. “They should be at home making babies. But here we are, stuck in this shit.” A big part of the problem in defending this part of Donbas, Ostap believes, is that the people who have stayed behind — the people who haven’t fled — don’t really believe they are part of Ukraine. In his view, the civilians who remain are all separatist sympathizers. He says they help the Russians navigate backcountry roads that aren’t on the maps.,” Mace says, laughing when I ask his opinion about the locals.
There’s a tank platoon in the dark forest here, holding in reserve on favorable terrain, lest the Russians succeed in crossing the river. The prisoner is on his knees, blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back. He’s wearing the distinctive uniform of Russian infantry. Because of Mace’s dedication to fast driving, I don’t process what I’ve seen until we pass. “A Russian prisoner!” Even as the words leave my mouth, a single gunshot cracks out.
“Sometimes we face skepticism, people say, ‘Well, the Russians don’t obey the rules of war. Why should we?’” said Col. Viacheslav Rachevskiy, the officer conducting the briefing. “But it is about being a civilized army.”
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