Amid the roar of artillery and explosions that rattled bones, New York Times photographers testified to the battle for survival. These are their stories and images.
During the three months of the Russian invasion, New York Times journalists described the carnage and courage, devastation and determination during the broad arc of battles in eastern Ukraine, where Vladimir V. Putin’s brutal offensive is now concentrated.
On and near the front line, they joined civilians whose homes, families and emotions were shattered, as well as Ukrainian soldiers – hardened veterans and green volunteers – using tools as modern as surveillance drones and as ancient as trenches.
Amid the roar of artillery, the rattling of small arms and the rattling of explosions, Times photographers testified to the battle for survival and murder – or simply survival. These are their accounts and images from the last few weeks of this battle.
On the front line south of Izyum, a Russian-occupied city north of the Donetsk region, two Ukrainian 122-mm cannons exploded through a moving landscape last week. They belonged to an artillery detachment of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, called to fire on Russian forces that had pressed Ukrainian troops.
The camouflage gunners then worked at lightning speed to cover their position, moving broken branches to hide the smoky barrels of powerful weapons. A young soldier, dressed in a bandana and with a determined expression, jumped out of the greenery, ran back into the woods to hide from enemy drones. Soon the team reloaded, aimed and fired again.
Crew of the 55th separate artillery brigade in the Donetsk region last week. Credit … Ivor Priket for The New York Times After helping to fire an artillery cannon and then hide it, a Ukrainian soldier from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade ran to cover himself south of Izyum last week. Credit … Iver Priket for The New York Times The body of a Russian soldier in the village of Novopil, recently captured by Ukrainian forces, last week. Credit … Iver Priket for the New York Times
On the same front, a dozen members of the 95th Airborne Brigade camped in a concrete building in an abandoned village house. Throughout the night, in pairs, they took turns guarding from inside a trench system that descended the hillside, overlooking a valley of rolling wheat fields cut by dark lumps of earth raised by the recent shelling of Russian artillery.
Several buildings nearby were destroyed by shelling, and the impact of artillery exchanges between Ukrainian and Russian troops a few miles north thundered day and night.
Artem Sandul, 20, lit a cigarette under the cover of a bunker of wood and mud in the trenches when he rose. Until Russia’s invasion on February 24, he was throwing burgers at McDonald’s. Now he was cooking for his comrades, his commander seemed to keep him from the most dangerous shelling a few miles up the road, where the Ukrainian lines were only 400 yards from the Russian in some places.
Ukrainian soldiers on the front line near Izyum on Friday. Credit … Finbar O’Reilly for The New York Times Soldiers from the 95th Air Assault Brigade on duty in a trench system on the front line near Izjum on Friday. Credit … Finbar O’Reilly for the New York Times Prepares dinner at an abandoned farm on the front line near Raisins on Thursday. Credit … Finbar O’Reilly for the New York Times
Near Izyum, planes, most likely Russian, flew low over Ukrainian positions, firing defensive flares to confuse anti-aircraft batteries, then made a sharp turn toward the trenches and screamed so low that they disappeared behind the tree line before disappearing over horizon.
On Tuesday in Vuhledar, about 30 miles southeast of Russian-occupied Donetsk, an artillery team from the 53rd Brigade responded to Russian artillery fire that soldiers said came from the church about four miles away.
A Ukrainian artillery team engaged in an exchange with Russian forces four miles near the village of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region on Tuesday. Credit … Finbar O’Reilly for The New York Times
In Barvinkove, a Ukrainian-controlled town 20 miles southwest of Izyum, a cyclist pedaled past blown-up buildings and a barricade while soldiers drank coffee at a small base and a sniper prepared his rifle for a mission. Nearby, Russian forces were trying to push south as part of a pliers movement to catch Ukrainian troops still holding pockets in the two eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.
A jet, most likely Russian, fired missiles at Ukrainian front lines last week. Credit … Finbar O’Reilly for The New York Times A cyclist makes his way through debris and barricades in the town of Barvinkove. Credit … Finbar O’Reilly for The New York Times A Ukrainian sniper placed a suppressor on his rifle near the front line in the Kharkiv region. Credit … Finbar O’Reilly for The New York Times
On the swaying front line of this pocket lies Bakhmut, a largely evacuated city of explosive shells, rubble and burned vehicles, where two huge craters are attached to the administration building. In newly reinforced defensive positions, Ukrainian troops tried to hold back Russia’s offensive amid the constant noise and trembling of ground artillery fired from both sides.
A Ukrainian soldier made his way past destroyed vehicles and buildings in the former city of Bakhmut last week. Credit … Finbar O’Reilly for The New York Times
In this region, Times photographers also encountered evidence of Russian losses. Ukraine’s territorial defense forces, mostly volunteer fighters, have managed to retake the village of Novopil. With Russian troops still less than half a mile away, evidence of a fierce battle was everywhere, in the remains of houses and the stench of dead bodies.
In front of a small shed lay the body of a Russian soldier where he had been slaughtered, and his clean, well-polished boots countered the devastation around him. There was a Soviet sickle and hammer on his brown suede belt.
Near Belohorivka were the devastated bodies and tanks of hundreds of Russian soldiers, whose disastrous attempt to cross the Seversky Donets River fell on the deadly Ukrainian heavy artillery.
But many of those captured in the destruction did not wear uniforms. Vitaly Kononenko, 47, had just built a new home for his family in the Zaporozhye region of southern Ukraine, but before he could bring his wife and children to see him, it was demolished.
At the Pokrovsk station in the Donetsk region, 43-year-old Anna Vereshchak boarded an evacuation train west with her daughters Milana, 5 and Diana, 4, after the bombing forced them to leave their village. Another woman, Valentina, introduced her blind 87-year-old mother, Nina, to the train.
Vitaly Kononenko examined the remains of a brand new home he built for his family in the town of Orikhov in April. Credit … Lince Addario for The New York Times Anna Vereshchak, 43, and her daughters Milana, 5, and Diana, 4, fled their front village and boarded an evacuation train in Pokrovsk earlier this month. Credit … Lincy Addario for The New York Times Valentina helped her blind 87-year-old mother board the evacuation train in Pokrovsk. Credit … Lincy Addario for The New York Times
Millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes, especially in the east, taking only what they can pack in a bag or two, often after spending weeks or months in basements despite bombing, starvation and isolation. Some of the fiercest fighting now is around Severodonetsk, near Luhansk, the easternmost city still holding Ukraine.
In Lisichansk, just across the bombed-out bridge from Severodonetsk, three police officers rallied artillery to collect the bodies of the dead, like a 65-year-old woman known to neighbors as Grandma Masha. Her dog growled and barked from his kennel as she was loaded into a sack of corpses and then into their white van.
According to neighbor Lena, 39, grandmother Masha could not get the medication she needed to treat her diabetes. Her son left with his family and could not return when she fell ill.
“This is a completely stupid war, but no one asked for my opinion,” said Lena, who, like most people interviewed, gave only her first name because she feared for her safety.
In an apartment building in Severodonetsk, already partially blown up and set on fire by shelling, residents huddled in the basement have finally come to terms with an evacuation. They barely responded to the sounds of explosions and gunfire nearby.
Police officers withstood the firing to remove the body of a woman known as Grandma Masha in the battered city of Lisichansk last week. Credit … Finbar O’Reilly for The New York Times Burying Grandma Masha in a mass grave in Lisichansk. Credit …. Finbar O’Reilly for The New York Times In a basement in Severodonetsk residents were waiting to be evacuated. Credit … Finbar O’Reilly for The New York Times
In the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as in the southern part of the Kharkiv region, Times photographers found Ukrainian troops at every possible stage of daily life in a war zone.
Dozens of members of the Carpathian Sich Battalion were in an underground bunker – eating, sleeping, cleaning their weapons and chatting on mobile phones with their wives and girlfriends. Some gathered around a monitor to watch a drone video of a recent attack. Most smoked.
The floor and walls of the bunker shook as a tank cartridge struck a nearby building, firing small arms. Bullets ricocheted off the walls outside. The Russians were close.
A handful of Ukrainian soldiers fled outside to repel the attack, while others gathered their weapons and waited at the door in case necessary. They were not; the shooting stopped.
A soldier lit a stove and began frying buckwheat.
Soldiers from the Carpathian Sich Battalion are reviewing footage of drones from an attack on …
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