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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

☆ 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

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

☆ 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

American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty adverse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive. The number of dead and wounded reflects the amount of lethal munitions being expended by both sides. When close combat does occur, it resembles the battles of World War I: brutal and often taking place in trenches. Unlike the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where American forces strictly adhered to evacuating casualties within an hour to a well-stocked medical facility, there is no such capability in Ukraine. In some cases, the wounded and dead are left on the battlefield, because medics are unable to reach them.

Locations: Ukraine, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq

In the early weeks of the war in Ukraine, with the invading Russian Army bearing down on Kyiv, the Ukrainian government needed weapons, and quickly. On the other end of the line was Serhiy Pashinsky, a chain-smoking former lawmaker who had overseen military spending for years. He had spent much of that under investigation on suspicion of corruption or denying accusations of self-dealing. Now, he was living in virtual political exile at his country estate, sidelined by President Volodymyr Zelensky and his promise to root out corruption. “Go out on the streets and ask whether Pashinsky is a criminal,” Mr. Zelensky said on national television in 2019.

Persons: Serhiy Pashinsky, Volodymyr Zelensky, “, Pashinsky, Mr, Zelensky Organizations: Russian Army, of Defense Locations: Ukraine, Kyiv

OUTSIDE AVDIIVKA, Ukraine — The headquarters of one of the battalions in Ukraine’s 53rd Mechanized Brigade smells of fresh cut pine trees. The scents are from the wooden support beams in the labyrinth of trenches that make up most of the unit’s rudimentary base outside the embattled town of Avdiivka. As the war enters its 17th month, the fighting has developed a noticeable rhythm. Russia and Ukraine are locked in a deadly back and forth of attacks and counterattacks. Russian artillery no longer has the clear advantage and Ukrainian forces are struggling with staunch Russian defenses, grinding on in their southern offensive, slowed because of dense minefields.

Organizations: Ukraine’s 53rd, Brigade Locations: AVDIIVKA, Ukraine, Ukraine’s, Avdiivka, Russia

Leave the eastern Ukrainian city of Izium and turn west onto rougher roads, where dead trees and twisted power lines give way to a string of shattered villages. These enclaves, once the backbone of Ukraine’s agricultural eastern steppe, were reduced to ruin as the war passed over them like a flood tide. Despite being recaptured by Ukraine’s military last fall, the villages of Sulyhivka, Virnopillia and Kamianka are now at risk of being lost — not to artillery or pitched battles, but to overgrown weeds, wildflowers and minefields. They are another kind of casualty in a war that has claimed many.

Locations: Ukrainian, Izium, Sulyhivka

Like many other soldiers, Pavlo Vyshebaba, 37, a platoon commander with the 68th Brigade, had long been collecting donations to procure supplies for his unit, in his case using his poetry as an appeal. But donations, which once flooded in via the web, have been lagging lately as the war drags on. Mr. Vyshebaba recently took two weeks off from the war to give readings around the country in a push to ramp up contributions in person. “I saw that the fund-raising on the internet at the beginning of 2023 stopped being effective, that maybe my audience was exhausted and we didn’t have victories for a long time,” he said. “But we still needed all this stuff.”

Persons: Pavlo Vyshebaba, Vyshebaba, “, ” Organizations: 68th Brigade Locations: Kyiv, Ukraine

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