On one reconnaissance sweep, he recalls, his team encountered a group of unsuspecting Russians, leading to a close-range firefight. But nothing prepared him for the brutality of the front. Oleksandr had already lived through eight years of war, starting in 2014, when Russian-backed separatists seized territory in Ukraine's east, next to his home in Kramatorsk. "Let me answer this way: I enlisted on March 22, and by April 4, I was in Sievierodonetsk," says Oleksandr, a civil engineer by training who now works setting and clearing mines. At most, they got three weeks of training before shipping out. 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.
They all requested NPR use only their first names for security reasons, to prevent them from being identified or located by Russian forces.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.
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. 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.
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