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Ukraine’s Race to Hold the Line The days of lightning battlefield breakthroughs may be over. N Anti-tank ditch 1 2 Dragon’s teeth 1 mile 3 Trenches This defensive line in southern Ukraine runs a staggering 27 miles. 25 miles KHERSON N Anti-tank ditch 1 Dragon’s teeth 2 1 mile 3 Trenches This defensive line in southern Ukraine runs a staggering 27 miles. 10 miles Anti-tank ditch 1 Dragon’s teeth 2 3 Trenches 15 miles Ditches. 25 miles N 1 Anti-tank ditch 2 Dragon’s teeth 1 mile 3 Trenches This defensive line in southern Ukraine runs a staggering 27 miles.

Persons: Copernicus, Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy, Christopher G, Cavoli, Chasiv Yar, James Rands, Janes, Rands, ” Organizations: U.S . House, Analysts, Infantry, Reuters, LUHANSK UKRAINE New, Institute for, American, Pentagon, Kurakhove, Defenses, “ Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Ukrainian, KHERSON, Wiesbaden, Germany, Kherson, Zaporizhia, LUHANSK UKRAINE, DONETSK ZAPORIZHIA, Russia KHERSON CRIMEA, ZAPORIZHIA, Russia KHERSON, CRIMEA, Avdiivka, Europe, Marinka, UKRAINE, London, “ Ukraine

Ukraine desperately needs to replenish its depleted forces in the face of relentless Russian attacks. So it has lowered the draft age from 27 to 25. That means that more young people will have to leave their jobs to join the army. And face an almost certain future of violence and tragedy.

Locations: Ukraine

Two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the hourly artillery duels, airstrikes and pitched fighting in the country’s east and south have turned the more than 600-mile front line into a scarred frontier. But clinging to the wreckage of their homes, and hometowns, are residents who refuse to leave. Buoyed by volunteers who deliver aid and their own battle-hardened survival instincts, they carry on with their lives in an unending test of endurance. The reasons they stay are many: to care for disabled family members, to look after pets or livestock or, plainly, their love of home. But in enclaves where the thuds of artillery serve as white noise, war is never far away.

Locations: Russia, Ukraine

☆ ‘Jamming’: How Electronic Warfare Is Reshaping Ukraine’s Battlefields
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-12 | by ( Thomas Gibbons-Neff | Yurii Shyvala | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

His video monitor had gone blurry at first, the landscape of shattered trees and shell craters barely visible, before blacking out completely. The Russians had jammed the signal of his drone as it was flying outside the town of Kreminna in eastern Ukraine. For a while, the Ukrainians enjoyed a honeymoon period with their self-detonating drones that were used like homemade missiles. The weapons seemed like an effective alternative to artillery shells for striking Russian forces. Now, the bad days are starting to outweigh the good ones: electronic countermeasures have become one of the Russian military’s most formidable weapons after years of honing their capabilities.

Persons: ” Locations: Ukrainian, Kreminna, Ukraine, “, Russian

Surprisingly Weak Ukrainian Defenses Help Russian AdvanceUkrainian trenches Ukrainian trenches Rudimentary Ukrainian trench lines outside Avdiivka, in an area claimed by Russia. But there’s another reason the Kremlin’s troops are advancing in the area: poor Ukrainian defenses. These trench lines lack many of the additional fortifications that could help slow Russian tanks and help defend major roads and important terrain. 2 miles Pavlivs’ke Novofedorivka Robotyne Russian fortifications Russian-claimed control Verbove Russian defenses shown below Held by Russia Novoprokopivka Romanivs’ke 2 miles Pavlivs’ke Novofedorivka Russian-claimed control Russian fortifications Verbove Russian defenses shown below Held by Russia Romanivs’ke Russian-claimed control Pavlivs’ke Novofedorivka Russian fortifications Verbove Russian defenses shown below Held by Russia Romanivs’ke 2 miles Sources: Satellite image from Planet Labs; Russian-controlled territory (as of Feb. 29, 2024) from the Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project; Russian fortifications based on data from Brady Africk. Satellite imagery from February shows the multilayered Russian defenses to the west of Verbove, with thousands of shell craters visible in the surrounding fields.

Persons: Avdiivka, Soloviove, Berdychi Stepove, Krasnohorivka, Russia Berdychi, Kyiv’s, Russia Novoprokopivka, Pavlivs’ke, Brady Africk, Verbove, “, ”, Serhiy Hrabskyi, They’d, Denys Shmyhal, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky’s, Paroinen, Mr, Hrabskyi, ” Mr, Oleksandra Mykolyshyn Organizations: Planet Labs, The New York Times Russian, Ukrainian Army, Russia Berdychi Stepove, Institute for, American, The New York Times, Black Bird Group, Russian Army Locations: Avdiivka, Russia, Ukrainian, Ukraine, Russia Russian, Verbove, Russian, U.S, Moscow, Donetsk, Ivano, Frankivsk, shoring

☆ In Ukraine, Russia Is Inching Forward Death by Death
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-27 | by ( Thomas Gibbons-Neff | Anatoly Kurmanaev | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As the Russian military launched its offensive on the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka last fall, Ukrainian troops noticed a change in their tactics as column after column of Russian forces were ravaged by artillery fire. Russian forces divided their infantry formations into smaller units to avoid being shelled, while the amount of Russian airstrikes increased to hammer the city’s defenses. It was one of several adjustments the Russians made to help reverse their fortunes after a disastrous first year. But these changes were obscured by one glaring fact: The Russian military was still far more willing to absorb big losses in troops and equipment, even to make small gains. Russian forces have a different threshold of pain, one senior Western official said this month, as well as an unorthodox view of what is considered an acceptable level of military losses.

Organizations: Western Locations: Russian, Ukrainian, Avdiivka

The staff member, Kyle Parker, is the senior Senate adviser for the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, known as the Helsinki Commission. The commission is led by members of Congress and staffed by congressional aides. It is influential on matters of democracy and security and has been vocal in supporting Ukraine. A confidential report by the commission’s director and general counsel, which The New York Times reviewed, said that the equipment transfer could make Mr. Parker an unregistered foreign agent. It said that Mr. Parker had traveled Ukraine’s front lines wearing camouflage and Ukrainian military insignia and had hired a Ukrainian official for a U.S. government fellowship over the objections of congressional ethics and security officials.

Persons: Kyle Parker, Parker Organizations: Capitol Hill, U.S . Commission, Security, Cooperation, Helsinki Commission, New York Times Locations: Russia, Europe, Helsinki, Ukraine

☆ Anti-Ukraine rhetoric has saturated right-wing media. Now it is helping to deliver actual war victories to Putin
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —Vladimir Putin’s information war in U.S. media paid off this weekend with a key victory halfway around the world. A CNN poll conducted last summer found that a staggering 71% of Republicans do not support additional aid to thwart Putin’s war on Ukraine. Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty ImagesMuch of the GOP’s softening toward Russia is owed to a near-total reversal in rhetoric from right-wing media personalities and outlets, prompted in large part by Donald Trump’s ascension to power in GOP politics. While the biggest players in right-wing media once fervently championed the foreign policy doctrines of the neo-conservatives, they now follow in the footsteps of Trump and vehemently reject the views once held by the George W. Bush administration. The rhetoric has had a considerable impact on the views of the party, which is now being reflected by its elected leaders.

Persons: Vladimir Putin’s, Putin, Julian E, Barnes, Thomas Gibbons, Neff, Eric Schmitt, CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh, Mike Johnson, Johnson, Mitt Romney, ”, Kostiantyn, Donald Trump’s, Trump, George W, Bush, Tucker Carlson, Carlson, Volodymyr Zelensky, ” Matt Gertz, “ Tucker Carlson, ” “, ” Gertz Organizations: New York CNN, U.S . Congress, Eastern, Congress, GOP, Senate, Republican, Republican Party, CNN, Chemical Plant, Fox News, U.S, Ukraine, Republicans, Media Locations: New York, Washington, Ukraine, Avdiivka, Europe, Russia, Avdiivka district, Moscow, U.S

☆ After Two Years of Bloody Fighting, Ukraine Wrestles With Conscription
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-28 | by ( Constant Méheut | Thomas Gibbons-Neff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Russian troops and tanks invaded Ukraine in February 2022, tens of thousands of Ukrainians rushed to serve in the army in a surge of patriotic fervor. But after nearly two years of bloody fighting, and with Ukraine once again in need of fresh troops to fend off a new Russian push, military leaders can no longer rely solely on enthusiasm. The bill was introduced in Parliament last month — only to be quickly withdrawn for revision. The bill has catalyzed discontent in Ukrainian society about the army recruitment process, which has been denounced as riddled with corruption and increasingly aggressive. Many lawmakers have said that some of its provisions, like barring draft dodgers from buying real estate, could violate human rights.

Organizations: dodgers Locations: Ukraine, Ukrainian, Russian

The Ukrainian soldier stared at the Russian tank. It was destroyed over a year ago in the country’s east and now sat far from the front line. The soldier was not there for the tank’s engine or turret or treads. The metal would be cut and strapped as protection to Ukrainian armored personnel carriers defending the embattled town of Avdiivka, around 65 miles away. The need to cannibalize a destroyed Russian vehicle to help protect Ukraine’s dwindling supply of equipment underscores Kyiv’s current challenges on the battlefield as it prepares for another year of pitched combat.

Locations: Ukrainian, Avdiivka, Russian

☆ Surviving Winter in a Decimated Ukrainian Village
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-24 | by ( Emile Ducke | Thomas Gibbons-Neff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Winter in Ukraine’s eastern steppe brings an inescapable cold. The wind blowing through damaged homes, the shattered windows, the chill in your bones — it feels as if it will be permanent. But winter is still weeks away. For a handful of families who live in a string of destroyed villages along what was once the front line near the city of Izium, these dwindling fall days are all the time they have to prepare for seasonal survival.

Locations: Izium

It was just after 1 p.m. when the first of three artillery shells shrieked past Maryna Korifadze’s bomb shelter in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, landing nearby with a bone-rattling crump. Her regular crowd of neighbors, some with children in tow, shuffled down the basement stairs and into the bunker. The younger crowd started playing table tennis in the next room. “Sometimes it’s between 20 and 30 people a night here,” Ms. Korifadze said. More than 20 months since Russia invaded, the war in Ukraine has been a test of endurance for the country’s civilians as they endure relentless Russian bombardments and missile strikes.

Persons: crump, Ms, Korifadze Locations: Ukrainian, Kherson, Russia, Ukraine

☆ Ukraine, a Sniper Mission and the Myth of the ‘Good Kill’
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-21 | by ( Thomas Gibbons-Neff | More About Thomas Gibbons-Neff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

What you need to understand about a sniper mission is that from the minute it begins to the minute it ends, everything you do is in service of killing another human being. So it was a little startling when — standing in the stairwell of a half-destroyed building in southern Ukraine, in the midst of a mission with a team of Ukrainian snipers — one soldier decided to explain to me his moral calculations when killing Russian troops. The front line was roughly a mile away. The snipers stared through the scopes of their rifles, waiting for something or someone to move. I was hungry and ate a cold chicken nugget purchased at a gas station many hours before.

Persons: — Organizations: The New York Times Locations: Ukraine, Russian

Shanta even marched into the Foreign and Home Ministries, clutching a plastic envelope of documents and pictures, and demanding answers. A Russian officer sent a relative a message: “Your brother was buried on 14 July at 12:50 at Navo-Talisty’s cemetery, Ivanovo, Russia. Her family is Hindu and believes the soul can be released from the body only by cremation. She wants to travel to the Russian cemetery, 200 miles from Moscow, and bring home her brother’s remains. But Nepali officials in Moscow told her the Russian Army would not allow this.

Persons: Shanta, “, ” Shanta, Thomas Gibbons, Neff Organizations: Foreign, Home Ministries, Russian Army Locations: Navo, Talisty’s, Ivanovo, Russia, Moscow, London

☆ Ukraine Has Gained Ground. But It Has Much Farther to Go
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-20 | by ( Thomas Gibbons-Neff | Lauren Leatherby | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +9 min

Ukraine Has Gained Ground. Progress since counteroffensive began Held by Russia But It Has Much Farther To Go. Ukraine Has Gained Ground. Ukraine Has Gained Ground. August 30, 2022 Robotyne Robotyne Robotyne Robotyne Robotyne August 2, 2023 Craters Robotyne Russian fortifications Trees gone along roads Russian fortifications Craters Robotyne Trees gone along roads Russian fortifications Craters Robotyne Trees gone along roads August 30, 2023 Robotyne Robotyne Robotyne This is what Robotyne looked like a year ago: occupied by Russia, untouched by battle and home to around a hundred people.

Persons: Orikhiv, Verbove, Russia Orikhiv, Russia Verbove, Ukraine Orikhiv, UKRAINE SEA OF AZOV RUSSIA Kharkiv KHARKIV LUHANSK UKRAINE Bakhmut, Robotyne, Brady, Copernicus, —, Valerii Organizations: Russia Ukrainian, Russia, Russia Verbove Robotyne, Ukraine Orikhiv Verbove, Troops, Donetsk Velyka Novosilka DONETSK, Donetsk Velyka Novosilka DONETSK RUSSIA Robotyne, UKRAINE SEA OF AZOV, Donetsk DONETSK Robotyne, Kyiv, Kyiv UKRAINE SEA OF AZOV Kharkiv, RUSSIA KHARKIV, DONETSK RUSSIA Robotyne, SEA, American, Russian, Ukraine, Ukrainian, Planet Labs, Ukrainian Armed Forces, Reuters, Robotyne Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Go, Kyiv, Robotyne, Tokmak, Melitopol, Azov, Crimean, KHARKIV LUHANSK UKRAINE, Luhansk, Donetsk, Donetsk Velyka Novosilka DONETSK RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE SEA OF AZOV RUSSIA Kharkiv KHARKIV LUHANSK UKRAINE, Donetsk DONETSK, Kyiv UKRAINE, RUSSIA KHARKIV LUHANSK UKRAINE, DONETSK, Russian, Crimea, Moscow, Europe, Ukrainian, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Verbove

The Pentagon has provided Patriot air defense systems and cajoled allies to provide S-300 air defense ammunition, both of which have proven effective. It has also provided other air defenses like the Avenger system and the Hawk air defense system. But Ukraine does not have enough air defense systems to cover the entire country, and must pick the sites it defends. Today, Russian officials have remade their economy to focus on defense production. As a result, military production has not only recovered but surged.

Persons: Russia’s Organizations: Pentagon Locations: Moscow, Russia, Kyiv, Ukraine, United States, Washington

The group included Ukrainian military and government officials, who are always in the market for explosive shells to lob at invading Russian soldiers. And joining the group was a stout, bearded man who served both the buyers and sellers: Vladimir Koyfman, a chief sergeant in the Ukrainian military whom Mr. Morales pays to arrange meetings with his government contacts. That unusual arrangement, legal experts say, tests the boundaries of American and Ukrainian corruption laws prohibiting payments to government officials. The administration has sent Ukraine more than $40 billion in security aid, including advanced weapons like HIMARS rockets and Patriot missiles. But the Pentagon also relies heavily on little-known arms dealers like Mr. Morales, who have the connections needed to secure ammunition, much of it lower-quality or Soviet-caliber, from around the world.

Persons: Marc Morales, Vladimir Koyfman, Morales, Biden Organizations: Patriot, Pentagon Locations: Florida, Ukraine

Ukrainian forces, churning slowly forward after breaching Russia’s initial defensive lines in the occupied south, are turning their attention to breaking through in another heavily defended patch of territory. In recent days, military analysts say, the Ukrainian Army has been battling to break through Russian positions near a village called Verbove, about six miles east of the village of Robotyne, which its fighters retook last week. The Black Bird Group, a volunteer organization that analyzes satellite imagery and social media content from the battlefield, said Monday that Ukrainian soldiers had cleared obstacles to reach Russian infantry fighting positions on the outskirts of Verbove. But analysts said that does not necessarily mean they have secured the territory, in an offensive that has met fierce resistance and made progress in small steps and at a high cost in casualties and equipment.

Organizations: Ukrainian Army, Black Bird Group Locations: Robotyne, Verbove

☆ 3 Bullets, 2 Wars, 1 Village
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-05 | by ( Thomas Gibbons-Neff | More About Thomas Gibbons-Neff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the spring of that year German forces counterattacked around Izium and the city of Kharkiv to the northwest. The Soviet and German forces arrayed against each other, on just a portion of World War II’s sprawling eastern front, involved hundreds of thousands of men more than the Ukrainian and Russian armies fighting today. The roughly two-week battle resulted in roughly 300,000 casualties on both sides and a crushing Soviet defeat. But World War II’s relevance is not just buried in the soil of Ukraine, it also serves as an undercurrent of Russia’s present-day invasion. He falsely claimed the country was overrun by the same type of adversaries millions of Soviet soldiers had died fighting during World War II, or what Russians call the Great Patriotic War.

Persons: ” Mr, Glantz, Vladimir V, Putin Organizations: Soviet, denazify Locations: Izium, Kharkiv, Ukrainian, Ukraine, Russia, Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Germany

There he was in Denmark, praising the government for “helping Ukraine to become invincible” with its pledge to send 19 jets. In Athens, he said Greece’s offer to train Ukrainian pilots would “help us fight for our freedom.” Within days of returning to Kyiv, Mr. Zelensky had secured promises from a half-dozen countries to either donate the jets — potentially more than 60 — or provide training for pilots and support crew. “It is important and necessary,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store of Norway told Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv, announcing that his government would provide an undetermined number of the jets — probably 10 or fewer — in the future. It was a remarkable victory lap for a sophisticated attack aircraft that even Ukraine’s defense minister has acknowledged is unlikely to perform in combat until next spring — and then only for the few pilots who can understand English well enough to fly it. With Ukraine’s counteroffensive grinding ahead slowly this summer, Mr. Zelensky’s airy announcements of securing the F-16s signal a tacit acknowledgment that the 18-month war in Ukraine will likely endure for years to come.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky, Jonas Gahr Organizations: ” Locations: Ukraine, Netherlands, Denmark, “, Athens, Kyiv, Norway

☆ Ukraine Steps Up Evacuation Calls as Russia Attacks in Northeast
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( Constant Méheut | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Ukrainian forces retook it in a lightning counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region last September. But since then, Russian forces have constantly pounded the area with artillery, making it practically impossible to go back to everyday life. Farther south, in the eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday that five people died in Russian strikes. The prosecutor’s office of the Donetsk region said on Telegram that Russian forces had most likely used cluster munitions in their attack. Both Russia and Ukraine have used the controversial weapons, which are known to cause indiscriminate harm to civilians.

Persons: Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy, Oleh Syniehubov, Mr, Syniehubov, Emile Ducke, Pavlo Kyrylenko, Thomas Gibbons, Neff Organizations: Reuters, The New York Times, RUSSIA Kyiv Kharkiv Kupiansk Locations: Kupiansk, Ukraine, Russian, Ukrainian, Kharkiv, RUSSIA, RUSSIA Kyiv Kharkiv Kupiansk Dnipro R, UKRAINE Volgograd, Azov CRIMEA, Donetsk, Russia

☆ Ukrainian Commander Urges More Defenses in the Northeast
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-26 | by ( Thomas Gibbons-Neff | More About Thomas Gibbons-Neff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Russian forces have managed to push forward around the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk in recent weeks as Kyiv’s forces have made slow headway in their continuing counteroffensive in the south and the east. Russia’s gains, while not significant, have led Ukrainian forces to dedicate some troops to defend parts of the sprawling front line, which stretches for several hundred miles, despite their need elsewhere. “Enemy units continue to inflict damage with artillery, mortars and aircraft,” the general, Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander of Ukraine’s eastern forces, said on the Telegram messaging app on Friday. Under the Pentagon’s reasoning, Kyiv should have committed an outsize number of forces on one portion of the front line to attempt a breakthrough. Ukrainian commanders have instead tried to divide troops and firepower in a manner that they consider to be as fair and as equal as possible between the east and south.

Persons: Oleksandr Syrsky Organizations: “, The New York Times Locations: Kyiv, Washington, Ukraine, Russia, Ukrainian, Kupiansk

It has been a year since Ukraine first parked a parade of destroyed Russian tanks, other armored vehicles and artillery pieces on Kyiv’s main thoroughfare to commemorate the country’s Independence Day, forgoing major public events in the hope of avoiding Russian missile strikes. That was the country’s first Independence Day since Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Over the next 12 months, Ukrainian forces retook areas of territory in the northeast in September. On Thursday, Ukrainians in the capital, Kyiv, once again milled about the destroyed Russian vehicles that lined Khreshchatyk Street and stood in front of Independence Square, also known as the Maidan. Independence Day in Ukraine commemorates the country’s 1991 break from the Soviet Union, but also increasingly serves as a rallying point for Ukrainians to assert their identity and aspirations.

Organizations: Russian, Russia, Kyiv Locations: Ukraine, Kherson, Bakhmut, Kyiv, Russian, Soviet Union, Russia

American officials say there are indications that Ukraine has started to shift some of its more seasoned combat forces from the east to the south. But even the most experienced units have been reconstituted a number of times after taking heavy casualties. Ukraine has penetrated at least one layer of Russian defenses in the south in recent days and is increasing the pressure, U.S. and Ukrainian officials said. Taking the village, American officials said, would be a good sign. The Russians are battling from concealed positions that Ukrainian soldiers often see only when they are feet away.

Locations: Ukraine

☆ In a War of Tanks, Ukrainian Soldiers Play World of Tanks Online
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-21 | by ( Thomas Gibbons-Neff | More About Thomas Gibbons-Neff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In a war of tanks, there’s World of Tanks. Somewhere along the several hundred miles of front line in Ukraine, a Ukrainian soldier is probably playing World of Tanks — the video game. A war hero recently admitted to gaming although he had to open a new account when he lost his login information. And a tank crew seen grabbing a quick lunch last year had slapped a World of Tanks logo on the hull of its T-80 main battle tank. War is often marked by long stretches of boredom, so why turn to the enduring favorite pastime of soldiers — throwing small rocks at bigger rocks — when there’s World of Tanks?

Persons: ”, Nazar Vernyhora Organizations: Tanks Locations: Ukraine, Ukrainian, Bakhmut, Kyiv

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