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Even though the world is currently mainly focused on what is happening in the conflict between Israel and Hamas; the war in Ukraine continues.

Around the small town of Marinka in the east of the country, several Ukrainian elite artillery brigades have been defending the front line for more than a year. The Russian army, on the other hand, is making little progress, but its attacks could tie up soldiers from Ukraine, preventing them from deploying to fighting in the south.

The New York Times followed exhausted but still deeply committed Ukrainian soldiers at the front. ‘We didn’t invite the Russians here, so they must be expelled’ says Evgeny, a 45-year-old commander.

The area is vast and includes the cities of Kupiansk, Kreminna and Bakhmut, up to Marinka and Vuhledar, where the Donetsk region ends and the Zaporizhia region begins.

‘Always first’ is the brigade’s motto; they must always be ready. No one knows when grenades fired from a few hundred yards away will explode in the forest areas and when the Russians will drop 500-pound bombs from fighter planes. “The Russians are using almost the entire range of their weapons in these forests,” says Commander Evgeny.

“I want to live the life of a normal person.” The report from the “New York Times” lets you look into the minds of the soldiers. The life of a normal person, soldier Oleg, does not need much more. “I want to start a family, build a house and plant a tree.”

But he and his colleagues are still needed on site. Although the area has already been completely destroyed, important Ukrainian cities and settlements lie behind the front line. When the alarm goes off, the soldiers drive to the front in trucks and shoot rockets into the air. Yaroslav, another commander, does not know whether they will hit Russian positions. But that’s not the point of such operations; the point is that the enemy artillery cannot work.

The elite brigades have been in action for almost 600 days, defending their area. If the Russian attackers manage to advance a few hundred meters, the territory they have won will be lost again a week later.

“I don’t know what motivation you must have to just go into this forest and die,” Commander Evgeny said in the New York Times about the Russian attackers. “For every meter of land they pay with hundreds of lost soldiers.” (First)