Europe | A bloody trade

Danger in Donbas as Ukraine’s front line falters

Russian fighters are trying to encircle the defenders

A local woman walks past the impact crater after a Russian strike on a residential area in Pokrovsk amid Russia's attack on Ukraine.
Photograph: Reuters
|Kurakhove

IF YOU IMAGINE that the front lines in Donbas are well-defined, you should think again. Oleksandr, an officer with Ukraine’s 79th brigade, watches the battlefield near the frontline town of Kurakhove on control-room screens every day. The Russians are mostly in front of Ukrainian positions, he says, but sometimes cause havoc kilometres behind them. For the wretched pairs of soldiers in scattered positions at the edge of what he calls the kill zone, it is more often than not a one-way mission. As many as 18 Russian soldiers might die to dislodge two worn, hungry Ukrainians. But eventually, they will. “We are exchanging lives and territory for time and the opponent’s resources.”

Explore more

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “The Russian push”

From the September 14th 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Europe

Friedrich Merz, leader of Germany's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, speaks during a session at the Bundestag, on January 29, 2025 in Berlin

A day of drama in the Bundestag

Friedrich Merz, Germany’s probable next chancellor, takes a huge bet and triggers uproar

Russia says it captured 2 settlements in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region

Amid talk of a ceasefire, Ukraine’s front line is crumbling

An ominous defeat in the eastern town of Velyka Novosilka


François Hollande hopes to make the French left electable again

The former president moves away from the radicals


Germans are growing cold on the debt brake

Expect changes after the election

The pope and Italy’s prime minister tussle over Donald Trump

Giorgia Meloni was the only European leader at the inauguration

Europe faces a new age of gunboat digital diplomacy

Can the EU regulate Donald Trump’s big tech bros?