Pretty interesting article, a snapshot of what life is like on the frontlines in a unit made up of mostly volunteers.
Free link here: https://archive.ph/uFMg2#selection-357.0-362.0
In some villages along the front, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers face off at close quarters, sometimes within eyesight of one another. https://t.co/3lExvJq2cd
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 12, 2022
Quote:
Fighting in eastern Ukraine has mostly occurred at a distance, with Ukrainian and Russian forces lobbing artillery shells at one another, sometimes from dozens of miles away. But at some points along the zigzagging eastern front, the combat becomes a vicious and intimate dance, granting enemy forces fleeting glimpses of one another as they jockey for command of hills and makeshift redoubts in towns and villages blasted apart by shells.
On Wednesday, one such dance played out as a Russian unit of about 10 men entered the village where soldiers from a Ukrainian contingent, the Carpathian Sich Battalion, had dug in. In all likelihood, the Russian troops were there to identify targets for incoming tank fire, including the round that jolted the Ukrainian soldiers into action. Ukrainian forces spotted the Russian soldiers and opened fire, pushing them back.
The war machines rarely remain quiet for long. Tanks in particular have become a serious menace, fighters said, often coming within a mile of the battalion's positions and wreaking absolute havoc. Already this month, 13 soldiers with the battalion have been killed and more than 60 wounded.
