Marines reveal fight to defend Kharkov

For months, Oleksey has been fighting for a small swath of land surrounded by Russian troops.

Now he, like many other soldiers rushed from elsewhere on the Ukrainian front, was rushed to defend Moscow’s offensive in the Kharkiv region.

This is a redeployment of new focus in this war.

We have been in contact with Oleksi for the past nine months. Now from northeastern Ukraine, he described the differences in fighting as “huge”.

Despite limited supplies, minimal gains and mounting losses, Kiev insists its southern foothold on the occupied eastern bank of the Dnieper River remains important.

This is where Olexi has been fighting for the past eight months. We agreed not to reveal his real name.

The last time we spoke to him was six months agowho described conditions along the swampy riverside as “hell.”

Things are not getting better.

“We managed to hold the bridgehead, but no equipment was able to get past it, and not once did we break through the Russian defenses,” he said.

Marines told us the area had been reduced to a “moonscape,” with entire villages leveled.

The Ukrainians also suffered heavy losses there.

“We destroyed a lot of Russian equipment, and they destroyed a lot of our personnel,” he said. “We left our best people by the river.”

Despite little progress and mounting losses, the Ukrainian military says it is achieving three goals through this bridgehead:

• Attract invading armies from elsewhere
• Limiting Russian artillery strikes on the city of Kherson across the river
• Finally cross it with enough numbers to liberate the territory

Oleksi said promised U.S. military aid was gradually starting to arrive, but not all of it reached his frontline.

Despite partially forcing the Russians to retreat, Ukrainian forces endured sustained Russian artillery fire.

“Any movement is immediately covered by artillery or drones,” he explained. “The Russians didn’t seem to care about our presence there either; we became a suitcase without a handle.

“The troops there can’t leave, everyone understands it’s useless.”

It is hoped that new mobilization laws that came into effect last month will help rest troops like those fighting on the east coast.

“This doesn’t change anything!” said Boston, commander of the flamethrower force still operating on the east coast. Boston was his military code name.

He sent us videos of him patrolling the Klingi River. At one point, he shot a Russian anti-personnel mine hidden under the sand.

“People should join the military from the age of 20,” he said. “But there is a problem. Many men have gone abroad. [to escape the draft]. No one wants to come back, no one wants to fight, no one wants to die.

We submitted their testimonies to Dmytro Pletenchuk, spokesman of the Southern Defense Forces of Ukraine.

“Compared to Russia’s losses, our losses are much smaller,” he explained. “Secondly, we are not losing more soldiers in this part of the front than in other areas.”

By definition, draftees are never as motivated as volunteers. It’s also easier to motivate troops when the battle is going well. This is not the case for Ukraine, especially on the east coast.

This is perhaps why Mr. Pletenchuk struck a sympathetic tone when we told him about the allegations of insubordination by East Coast troops.

“Those who are forced to defend their country are yesterday’s civilians,” Mr. Pletenchuk said with a smile. “They will certainly have a different view of the military.”

Ahead of the arrival of more Western military aid, Ukrainian generals believe Russia is trying to expand the battlefield and further stretch its defenses.

The invasion force’s ground offensive in the northeast has been going on for more than a month, and while Ukraine has slowed its advance, it has not let up.

That is why Oleksi now finds itself hundreds of kilometers away from the Kherson region.

“Everything happened in a hurry, without any preparation,” he said.

“Everyone is here: Marines, air assault troops, state border troops, regular infantry, homeland defense forces and national police.”

“There are also more drones in the sky than on the east bank of the Dnieper.”

Moscow currently leads the industrialized conflict while Kiev struggles with manpower, weapons and tactics.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that time is running out to reach a diplomatic solution that benefits Ukraine, which is why he recently held a peace summit in Switzerland.

This was to build global support for peace in line with his wishes. While nearly 80 countries have signed the agreement, key regional powers in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia have not.

Russia was not invited, but ahead of the meeting Vladimir Putin demanded that Ukrainian troops withdraw from four regions he partially captured.

His conditions are both extreme and unrealistic, but his dominance on the battlefield means a potential peace deal may be more on his terms than Kiev’s.

President Zelensky admitted that his first priority was to hold on to the front lines. If his troops could do this before the arrival of autumn and more difficult fighting conditions, it would be considered a success.

In addition, he claimed that there are still counterattack plans in the future.

If Oleksiy survives the defense of the Kharkiv region, he may find himself back in the “hellish” crossing of southern Ukraine.

Additional reporting by Anastasiia Levchenko and Hanna Chornous