Surviving on a perpetual frontline in the Ukraine war

The town of Niu-York in Ukraine’s Donetsk region is home to what commanders say is a rarity, writes Alex Horton: a frontline that has more or less stayed the same since 2014

Ukrainian soldiers from the 24th Separate Mechanised Brigade use a US-made M240 machine gun to shoot towards Russian positions (Photo for The Washington Post by Heidi Levine)

The Russian jet cuts a path through the tributaries of the Donbas hills, flying low to avoid detection, as a Ukrainian soldier juggles three unruly kittens in his meaty palms.

It is half of a litter, explains the soldier, who goes by the call sign Yarik, as their mother prowls the edge of a dugout. Within minutes, the enemy Su-25 fires a missile, striking a position about 300 metres away with a thunderous crack.

“Bunker! Bunker! Bunker!” the soldiers shout, as humans and felines alike seek cover in the shadowy earthen shelter with a pine-log roof. After a few minutes with no follow-on attacks heard, the men, from Ukraine’s 24th Separate Mechanised Brigade, filter back to the edge of the trench line, where younger troops instruct an older soldier how to use a vape pen. He asks about the flavour, which he is struggling to identify.

“Peach!” One soldier yells out, laughing. “Or no, mango!”

A Ukrainian soldier who goes by the call sign Yarik holds three of six kittens born in a bunker used by the 24th Separate Mechanised Brigade (Photo for The Washington Post by Heidi Levine)

Their position, outside the town of Niu-York in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, is among a string of machine-gun nests and observation posts that loosely form what commanders say is a rarity: a frontline that has more or less stayed the same since 2014, when Russian forces and their separatist proxies first fomented war in Donbas and began seizing territory. Russian positions are about 400 to 500 metres away, well within machine-gun and sniper range.

The nine-year-long status quo near Niu-York may soon be challenged by battles in Bakhmut to the northeast and Avdiivka to the southwest, where Russian troops are making bloody gains. A breakout in those areas, leaders have said, would strangle supply routes into the area and risk units here becoming encircled.

In this grinding war, with advances made in feet, not miles, the joining of Russian troops from north and south into a unified westward-pushing line of attack would be a major triumph for Moscow, and would further Vladimir Putin’s goal of seizing all of the Donetsk region as well as three others: Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.

The terrain near Niu-York itself is a formidable obstacle that the Russian forces use to their advantage, the soldiers say. The rolling hills provide ample cover for enemy troops to manoeuvre without being seen until they attack in small groups, probing the lines for weaknesses or trying to provoke Ukrainian troops into firing and revealing their positions.

A soldier with the call sign Irpin, from Ukraine’s 24th Separate Mechanised Brigade, at a trench position near the town of Niu-York (Photo for The Washington Post by Heidi Levine)

Ukrainian forces occupy the high ground in some areas but are in lower-elevation bowls in others – a tactically dangerous scenario, in which enemy troops can look down to rain gunfire on them and have an expansive view to call in artillery strikes. The Russian forces have operated here for years and know the terrain well.

“The landscape is not completely in our advantage. We don’t always have the best positions. We don’t always see them,” says a senior sergeant who gives only his call sign, Grek, in order to adhere to Ukrainian military rules. The soldiers use the same strategy as the Su-25 pilot, he says, who harnessed the topography to cloak their position between two hills before releasing munitions from a few miles away. The plane evaded radar, Grek explains, and was not detected until it had fired and returned home.

The spring thaw will bring a much-needed reprieve from the harsh, freezing conditions that make trench warfare insufferable, but it will also complicate matters. Some hilly positions have perhaps 65 to 100 feet of visibility through leafless trees, but foliage will soon limit the view, Grek says.

While fighting in this area has quietened in recent weeks, the region remains an important buffer to keep Russian forces, which are currently split, from combining along the front.

“The longer we hold this line, it also means it’ll be better and easier for Bakhmut,” Grek says, stopping intermittently to click his radio and answer soldiers checking in from their positions. “Well, not easier. I can’t say that about that place. But if we pull more enemy forces into this direction, it might calm down the situation for the guys there, and maybe stop a full encirclement.”

A sign that reads ‘I Heart Niu-York’ stands in the town on 21 March (Photo for The Washington Post by Heidi Levine)

The town of Niu-York, free from skyscrapers but speckled with occasional references to its American namesake, has endured shelling and destruction for as long as any other frontline town since 2014. Townspeople who have not yet evacuated shuffle past blocks of pulverised homes and boarded-up schools, and the occasional tractor tills black soil in anticipation of spring.

A woman feeding dogs and cats on one block, who gives only her first name, Yevhenia, says she doesn’t want to talk about anything except the animals. Some pets were abandoned by people who fled, she says, and others have wandered into the town recently. She is trying to nurse Cutie, an affectionate grey and brown cat showing signs of infection, back to health.

Beaming with pride, Yevhenia, 69, says she took part in helping to rescue 35 dogs to a shelter in Dnipro, as part of her long history of looking out for animals. “I have been doing this for my entire life,” she says.

Back at the position, the soldiers say the shelling and firefights are not as intense as in previous areas where they’ve been stationed, describing this chunk of the front as a place of relative quiet.

Several mention having been wounded in other engagements. A 56-year-old soldier who used to work as a customs officer (call sign: Customs) says an explosion north of Bakhmut broke five of his ribs, peppered his leg with shrapnel and left him with a concussion.

Yevhenia, right, and a neighbour care for some stray dogs (Photo for The Washington Post by Heidi Levine)

Recovered now, he shoulders a US-made M240 machine gun and fires two bursts across no man’s land. The lines are close enough to see enemy soldiers, but he isn’t sure he hit any of them. No matter. “It feels so euphoric,” he says, to fire the gun.

Other epiphanies have spread throughout the position. A 19-year-old soldier, nicknamed Little One for his youthful face and slight build, says he put his amateur mixed martial arts fighting career on hold to enlist soon after the Russian invasion last year. Now, he is assigned a DShK heavy machine gun that is probably bigger than he is, and has no plans to return to civilian life even if the war ended tomorrow. “It’s a brotherhood, one big family,” he says.

The security of the line depends on a symphony of specialisms, from infantry braving the trenches to artillerymen firing on enemy positions, supported by drone pilots who help them to adjust their targets.

Others hunt armoured vehicles and tanks, including a four-man team who describe themselves as “ninjas in the bushes”, who assemble and fire their Skif, a Ukrainian guided-missile system, whenever they are dispatched for an assignment. The team – commander Dmytro and soldiers with call signs Viper, Joker and Artist – have videos on their phones showing the Skif blowing up vehicles. Some were occupied, they say; others weren’t. Some they don’t know.

The job has provided a front-row seat to some of the most peculiar behaviour on the Russian side, Viper says, recalling one moment when he watched a group of three soldiers dig a position. He fired an anti-tank gun, killing them on the spot. Another group came out to dig. He fired again and again – all day, he says, adding: “I helped them dig that hole.”

The rolling hills of the Donetsk region provide ample cover for invading Russian troops to manoeuvre without being seen until they attack (Photo for The Washington Post by Heidi Levine)

The enemy are digging and building all over the place, it seems. Digging trench lines. Building anti-tank defences. The drones are capturing all that activity, Grek says.

His soldiers are mentally exhausted in this grinding phase, he adds, but they are preparing for more fights to come.

“We will have to push this front further and further back. That’s not up for discussion, that’s how it has to be,” he says. “Our brigade commander told us the same thing: ‘Boys, while we’re here, we’re resting, but there will come a time where the command will come to boldly move forward.’”

Grek says he had an aversion to guns and firearms before the war. As soldiers file past him carrying Kalashnikovs, he says he still doesn’t want to use them. “We’ll have to ask them to leave,” he says of the enemy. “Or force them, I guess. That might be easier.”

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