Marin reveals the struggle to defend Kharkiv.

Oleksy has been fighting for months to defend a small swath of land surrounded by Russian troops.

Now he, like many other soldiers from other parts of the Ukrainian front, has rushed to the Kharkiv region to defend against Moscow’s offensive.

This is a redeployment that marks a new focus for the war.

We have been in touch with Oleksih for the past 9 months. Now from northeastern Ukraine, he described the differences in the fighting as “staggering.”

Despite limited supplies, meager gains, and mounting losses, Kiev insists that its southern stronghold on the east bank of the Dnipro River remains important.

This is where Oleksi has been fighting for the past eight months. We agreed not to reveal his real name.

We last spoke to him six months ago.He described conditions along the swampy riverside as “hell”.

The situation has not improved.

“We managed to hold the bridgehead, but no equipment was able to get past it and we never managed to break through the Russian defenses,” he said.

The Navy says the area was transformed into a “moonscape” and entire towns were destroyed to their foundations.

Ukrainians also suffered heavy losses there.

“We destroyed a lot of Russian equipment, and they destroyed a lot of our manpower,” he says. “We left our best people by the river.”

Despite minimal progress and mounting losses, the Ukrainian military says it is pursuing three objectives through the beachhead.

• To attract invading forces from elsewhere
• To limit Russian artillery attacks on the city of Kherson across the river.
• In order to eventually cross in sufficient numbers to liberate the territory,

Oleksi said promised U.S. military aid has begun to arrive gradually, but not all of it has reached the front lines where he served.

Despite pushing back the Russians to some extent, Ukrainian forces still suffer from constant Russian shelling.

“Any movement was immediately covered by artillery or drones,” he explains. “The Russians didn’t seem worried about us being there either. We became suitcases without handles.

“The troops there cannot leave and everyone knows it is useless.”

It is hoped that a new mobilization law that came into effect last month will help give troops like those fighting along the eastern banks a break.

“Nothing will change!” said Boston, the flamethrower unit commander still fighting on the east bank. Boston is his military code name.

He sends us footage of himself patrolling the riverside creek, at one point even firing a Russian anti-personnel mine hidden beneath the sand.

“People should be in the military from the age of 20,” he says. “But there is a problem: many of the men have gone abroad. [to escape the draft]. “No one wants to come back, no one wants to fight, no one wants to die.”

We relayed their testimony to Dmytro Plettenchuk, spokesman for the Southern Defense Forces of Ukraine.

“Compared to the Russian losses, our losses are much smaller,” he explains. “Secondly, we do not lose soldiers in this part of the front line, as in other areas.”

By definition, conscripts will never be as motivated as volunteers. It is also easier to motivate troops when the odds are in your favor. This is not the case in Ukraine, especially on the eastern coast.

This may be why Mr. Pletenchuk took a sympathetic tone when we told him about the alleged military insubordination on the eastern bank.

“The people who were forcibly taken away to protect their country are yesterday’s citizens.” Mr. Plettenchuk said with a smile. “Of course they will have a different perception of the military.”

Before more Western military aid arrives, Ukrainian generals believe Russia is seeking to expand the battlefield and further increase defense forces.

The invaders have been launching ground offensives in the northeast for over a month, and the Ukrainians have slowed their advance but have not given up.

That is why Oleksiy is now located hundreds of kilometers from the Kherson region.

“It all happened in a hurry and there was no preparation,” he says.

“Marines, air assault troops, state border guards, regular infantry, territorial defense, police, everyone is here.”

“There are more drones in the sky than on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River.”

Moscow is currently at the forefront of this industrialized conflict, with Kiev competing for manpower, weapons and tactics.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has acknowledged that time is running out for a diplomatic solution favorable to Ukraine, which is why he recently held peace talks in Switzerland.

It was about building global support for peace on his terms. Nearly 80 countries have signed the agreement, but important regional powers in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia have not.

Russia was not invited, but ahead of the talks, President Vladimir Putin demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from four regions he partially occupies.

His terms are maximalist to the point of being unrealistic, but his dominance on the battlefield means any potential peace deal might fit his terms better than Kiev’s.

President Zelensky has admitted that his priority is simply to hold the front line. If his forces can do that before the fall and the more difficult combat conditions, it will be considered a success.

He also claims there are still plans for a counterattack in the future.

If Oleksiy survives the defense of the Kharkiv region, he will be able to return to Ukraine’s “hellish” river crossing to the south.

Additional reporting by Anastasiia Levchenko and Hanna Chornous