Grinding War and Weary Anticipation of Invasion at Ukraine's Front |
Machine-gun fire broke the stillness just after 8 p.m. when Capt. Denis Branitskii was midway through the evening patrol. The shots came in sporadic bursts and were close by, fired by Russian-backed separatists whose positions were obscured in the darkness. Only when the flash of a rocket-propelled grenade illuminated the newly fallen snow did Captain Branitskii break his stride, briefly pausing to take cover before moving on. |
 | | Capt. Denis Branitskii, left, with Lt. Alexey Kasyanov patrolling a neighborhood where houses were destroyed by fighting near the industrial zone in Avdiivka, Ukraine.Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times |
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"This happens every night," said Captain Branitskii, a cleft-chinned company commander with the Ukrainian military's 25th Airborne Brigade, positioned along the front lines in eastern Ukraine. "Sometimes it's much heavier, sometimes it's like tonight. Tonight, this is fine." |
This is what the war has been like for years, a slow, bloody grind that set in after both sides fought to a stalemate over territory seized by Russian-backed forces in 2014. Now Ukrainian and Western officials say something more ominous could be building. |
In recent weeks, they have warned that Russia was erecting the architecture for significant military action, possibly even a full-fledged invasion. U.S. intelligence officials have assessed that Moscow has drawn up plans for a military offensive involving an estimated 175,000 troops, to begin as early as next year. Recent satellite photos showed a buildup in equipment, including tanks and artillery. |
So far, soldiers on the front lines said they had seen little evidence of escalation beyond this largely slow-moving war of attrition. Compared with the vicious fighting that preceded it, this is a holiday, several soldiers said. |
But after eight years in the trenches, there is a weary acceptance that the status quo cannot last forever, and that the Russian military, which dwarfs their own in power and wealth, is likely to come sooner or later. If that moment is now at hand, they said, so be it. |
On the night I joined Captain Branitskii on patrol, forces under his command returned fire only once. "Just to let them know we're here," he said. The thwomp of a Ukrainian soldier's grenade launcher silenced the machine-gun fire on the other side, but only briefly. |
"This really annoys the soldiers, that we're not allowed to respond," said First Lt. Ivan Skuratovsky, a stoic, 30-year-old father of two who has been fighting since the war broke out in 2014. |
Since August, the 25th Airborne Brigade has been posted to an area on the outskirts of the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka known as the Promzona, a base built into the skeletal remains of a tire factory. The site of nasty fighting at the start of the war, the factory complex is now eerily silent save for the rush of wind through bullet-strafed passageways and the banging of loose metal sheeting. |
 | | Soldiers resting in their barracks in Avdiivka. At a time of increased tension, they are on heightened alert.Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times |
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Some military analysts have said that, faced with a full invasion by vastly superior forces, Ukraine would at best manage an organized retreat. Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk, commander of the Joint Forces Operation battling the separatists, cited the many citizens in Ukraine with military experience and suggested the conflict might evolve to something akin to insurgency, with Ukrainians fighting the Russians block by block and house by house. |
But the war would take a disastrous toll. |
"This is a beast who has tasted blood," General Pavlyuk said. "Believe me, the losses are going to be horrible on both sides — thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. On their side and ours." |
For those on the front charged with paying attention, there is a subtle but palpable change in the air, even if it is unnoticed by regular soldiers. |
"In the last month or month and a half, everything has become more frequent," said a masked and helmeted military intelligence commander who would give his name only as Ilya. "Shelling is more frequent, from both artillery and small arms. Drones have started flying more often, and if before they did not drop bombs, now they've come up with a system for doing so. |
"It's a full-on activization." |
Michael Schwirtz is an investigative reporter with The New York Times. He was a lead reporter on a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles about Russian intelligence operations around the world. |
| READ MICHAEL'S FULL DISPATCH FROM UKRAINE'S FRONT LINE. | | |
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