This is the situation with Ukrainian soldiers at the front: “Now we are just tired”

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In full gear, with a cap over his eyes, a Ukrainian soldier sleeps on a camp bed in an earthen bunker. In minus eight degrees and snow, he stood guard all night in the trenches on the eastern front near Kupiansk. “It is difficult, but we persevere,” says his comrade Wadim. Many soldiers have been deployed since the Russian attack began almost two years ago – and are at the end of their strength.

Yet they continue to fight. “We have no other choice,” said 31-year-old Vadim, a member of the 41st Brigade. At the beginning of the war, masses of volunteers volunteered to defend their country with weapons. But now the Ukrainian army is struggling to find men for the front. Kiev keeps its losses secret, but U.S. estimates published in the New York Times in August said nearly 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and up to 120,000 wounded.

Debate on new convocations

The adrenaline helped his brigade through the first year of the war, which started with the major Russian attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. “We were not afraid of anything,” Wadim says. ‘But now we’re just tired. After two years we still see no light at the end of the tunnel.”

With a lightning strike, Ukraine liberated Kupiansk and the surrounding Kharkiv region from Russian occupation in September 2022. But since the summer, Russian troops have been on the offensive again. “They are constantly attacking and advancing,” says Vadim. “There are more wounded than we would like,” said Oleksandr, a 20-year-old soldier. In view of the new fighting, authorities evacuated 26 towns in the region in mid-January.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (45) announced in December that he would mobilize another half a million soldiers to fight the approximately 600,000 Russians stationed in Ukraine. Since then, a debate has been raging in Ukraine about new conscriptions. At the beginning of January, Parliament postponed the decision on a draft law on mobilization. The current recruitment system is considered unfair, inefficient and often corrupt. And there are voices calling on those who have been at the front for a long time to return home.

“The boys are exhausted”

Until new soldiers are recruited, Vadim and his comrades must hold out in the trenches. “Of course we want demobilization,” says Vadim. “I haven’t seen my family in six months.” It’s not about ten days’ vacation, he says. “That wouldn’t do us any good, it’s not recovery. At least six months off, that would be better.”

The patriotic mood in which thousands of Ukrainians volunteered for service in 2022 is over. “Now it is mainly older men who are being drafted,” says Oleksandr, calling for further mobilization. “We have the people for that,” he says. “Since the first days of the invasion, we have almost always been at the front,” Vadim notes. “The boys are exhausted – mentally and physically. They just can’t do it anymore.” (AFP)

Source: Blick