Dodging shells, mines and spies: On the front with Ukraine?s snipers

The unit had to avoid stepping on mines — or revealing themselves to locals who might tip off the Russians.There was a lull in the artillery barrage.“Let’s go now,” declared Dmytro Pyatnikovskiy, 38, the leader of the five-member team.But then another shell rammed into the ground.With Russia’s military pushed out of Kyiv and on the retreat in Kharkiv, the war is now being waged largely in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, in and around villages and towns like Maryinka. Russian forces are trying to push south from the town of Izyum and west from Moscow-backed separatist-controlled areas in a bid to fully take over Donbas, to which the Kremlin has laid claim on the grounds of defending its large Russian-speaking population.But the Ukrainian troops here, a mix of soldiers and volunteers, have resisted stiffly, inflicting heavy casualties under conditions that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described as “hell.” More than a month after Moscow shifted its focus to seizing the country’s east, the Russians have made limited gains so far; in many areas, their offensive has ground to a stalemate.Inside Mariupol’s besieged steel plant, bravery and terrorA visit to Maryinka brought a rare close-up look at the current nature of the war in eastern Ukraine — fueled now by crushing artillery battles aided by drones and snipers — and showed why Russian forces have failed to break Ukraine’s defensive lines.“The Russians only fire with artillery and tanks now,” said Curly, 35, a drone operator who gave only his nom de guerre. “There is still a dead soldier from my unit lying there,” Curly said.But since then, the Russians have not moved.“We have to fall back sometimes from our positions because we are getting shelled, we are getting bombed,” Curly said. Curly’s drones have sent back images of Russian positions and tank movements, vital information for the mortar and artillery units.Curly’s younger brother, whose nom de guerre translates roughly to “crappy Ukrainian car,” is an actor and aviation hobbyist. “If we have more of these weapons, it will tip the scale against the Russians,” Curly’s brother said.Behind their own lines, the Ukrainians suspect that a large percentage of the civilians who have remained in Maryinka support Russia and are collaborating with the enemy. The soldiers saw a benefit to keeping the residents in the school, which was near the operations base.“Their presence actually helps because the Russians are not firing at this position,” Curly said.For the snipers, there are additional challenges. With the windows of the building large and open, they walked low to the ground, their backs hunched, to avoid appearing in a Russian sniper’s crosshairs.The Ukrainians’ focus was on an emerald green hilltop nearly a mile away.“The Russian positions are over there,” Dima said, pointing out the window. They would be able to kill the Russian troops that were firing on them.“This is going to be our position,” Dima said.Serhii Korolchuk contributed to this report.The latest: Severodonetsk, the easternmost city under Ukraine’s control, is set to be the war’s next major battlefield, with local officials reporting intense Russian shelling in recent days.