Ukraine’s fighters fear Russian attacks and America’s ceasefire

“THE DARKEST moment of this war is now,” says a Ukrainian intelligence officer. Along roads in the east, tank transporters lumber towards the front line while ambulances speed away from it. In the past few weeks the Russians have ramped up drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and their soldiers are mounting a renewed offensive aimed at creating a breakthrough in the east even as Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, is coming under intense American pressure to sign up to a peace plan that looks much more favourable to Russia than to Ukraine.

The monumental road sign that welcomes people to Donetsk province, roughly two-thirds of which is occupied by Russia, has become a shrine to the region’s war dead, festooned with military flags and protected by an anti-drone net. Cigarettes have been left as offerings for fallen comrades. But it is a sign of the times that the road beyond has been closed in the past few weeks, and a back-road diversion opened, because the route skirting the long-besieged city of Pokrovsk has now become too dangerous.

The leaked American proposal would end sanctions on Russia, freeze the front line and see America formally recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The intelligence officer, based in Kyiv, does not hide his disdain. “No one who has any shred of dignity would sign this,” he says. On the front, though, the language is far less gung-ho. Soldiers focus on killing Russians and staying alive rather than on high politics. They report that in the past month there has been an upsurge in fighting, especially in the area south of the town of Kostiantynivka. Ukrainian forces have driven the Russians back at some points, but more territory has been lost than regained. Russia has been able to increase attacks thanks to the redeployment of troops from its Kursk region, where it has driven out Ukrainian forces. But the Ukrainians have not been able to redeploy: they are locked down defending the Sumy region, over the border from Kursk, which the Russians are now attacking.

A command bunker of the 91st Anti-Tank Battalion lies in a former nuclear shelter underneath a bombed-out factory in a town we have been asked not to name. Large tents have been erected to serve as dormitories, and the centre of the operation is a set of rooms with banks of screens and laptops. “Motherfuckers,” exclaims “Sheriff”, the commanding officer, as, via a surveillance drone, he sees two Russian soldiers scurrying along a road hauling a mortar tube in the village of Kalynove, which they captured on April 11th. Sheriff says the Russians have stepped up pressure with the 21st-century equivalent of cavalry charges. In one of them 100 Russians on 50 motorcycles charged Ukrainian positions. Trying to stop them is like being in a shooting gallery, he says.

According to the intelligence officer this matches what Ukrainian troops have noticed elsewhere, as pressure in the east increases. Russian forces are concentrating huge numbers of men to capture specific targets. Although up to 80% of those troops “are doomed”, the sheer numbers thrown into the assault mean that some will get through. As Ukraine does not have enough soldiers to counter them, it is slowly losing ground. Sheriff says he wants a ceasefire to come into effect, not to preserve territory but “to save lives”.

“Craft”, the deputy commander of a National Guard battalion, says his men near Ocheretyne now find themselves fighting in an area overlooked by high ground taken by the Russians in a pocket south of Kostiantynivka; he believes they may soon have to regroup. That would not be a retreat, he says, but a way to position his men to kill more Russians. But Russians would celebrate such a pullback as a victory, as it would mean that Kostiantynivka was in danger of falling to them. If it did, the road would be opened to advances towards more important towns in Donbas. ■