“When you go on duty, you don't know if you've been spotted or not. And if you've been spotted, you may already be living the last hours of your life,” said Oles, staff sergeant of the 5th Assault Brigade's reconnaissance unit.
This threat means that soldiers are staying on their posts longer and longer.
Oles and his men are infantry and serve in the trenches, right at the forefront of the Ukrainian defense. It is rare today for journalists to speak to the infantrymen, because it has become too risky to go into these trenches. We meet Oles and Maksym in a rural house transformed into a makeshift base, where soldiers come to rest when they are not on deployment.
“The most I spent in this position was 31 days, but I know guys who spent 90, even 120 days there. Before the arrival of drones, rotations could have lasted between 3 and 7 days in this position,” explains Maksym.
“War is blood, death, wet mud and a chill that spreads from head to toe. And that's how we live every day. I remember one case where we didn't sleep for three days, alert every minute. The Russians continued to attack us in wave after wave. Even a slight deviation would have meant our death.”
Oles claims that the Russian infantry changed tactics. “Previously, they attacked in groups. Now, sometimes they only send one or two people. They also use motorcycles and, in a few cases, quad bikes. Sometimes they sneak around.”
This means that the front lines in some regions are no longer conventional lines with the Ukrainians on one side and the Russians on the other, but rather pieces on a chessboard during play, where positions can intertwine.
It also makes it more difficult to see progress made by either party.
