Along a 1,500-kilometer front line, Ukrainian men are holding off the onrushing Russian offensive – despite old weapons and too little ammunition.
Tomorrow Friday marks one year since the Russian invasion began and changed the world.
– I fight for the truth. For us to live in freedom. Russia can also attack your countries, says the Ukrainian grenade launcher soldier Dima to TV4 Nyheterna.
It has been described as Europe’s worst war since 1945 and where Europe’s future hangs in the balance.
But for the soldiers at the front in the east, it is a raw, brutal everyday life.
The company that TV4 Nyheterna visits held last autumn in Kherson. Back then they fired 100 grenades per day – now they have to economize and are down to 25 per day.
Unsustainable in the long run, says the soldier Aleksander.
– We need ammunition in all forms. Our inventory of all calibers is running low. We gratefully accept help, he says.
Lives in a cave underground – next to the frozen rides
Aleksander and Dima and the rest of the company are now staying next to a frozen ski a few kilometers from Bachmut. They live in a hole dug underground – far from family and friends and constantly under threat of death.
But you get used to it, the soldiers claim.
– We have become accustomed to this life. In the beginning, everything felt unreal, you were scared. But now it’s not like that anymore, says Dima.
In the player above: See the entire report from the front outside Bachmut.
Looking back: A year of war in Ukraine