A Ukrainian serviceman jumps out of the boat onto the shore of the Dnipro river near Kherson, Ukraine, 15 October 2023.
Alex Babenko/AP Photo
Ukrainian soldiers and marines told The New York Times that the Dnipro river front is brutal.They contradicted official reports that they have gained a foothold on the eastern bank.They said that Ukrainian soldiers are dying in huge numbers and that it is a “suicide mission.”
In recent months, the banks of the Dnipro river have taken center stage in the war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian officials claiming that their forces have gained a foothold on the eastern bank.
However, marines and soldiers on the ground told The New York Times that these claims are overstated and that Ukrainians are dying in huge numbers, often before they even reach the other side of the river.
“There are no positions. There is no such thing as an observation post or position,” Ukrainian soldier Oleksiy said. “It is impossible to gain a foothold there. It’s impossible to move equipment there.”
“It’s not even a fight for survival,” he said. “It’s a suicide mission.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said in November that Ukrainian forces had gained a foothold on the eastern river, which would mark a significant advance in Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Russia has held control of the eastern bank after having retreated from the western bank last year.
There were also optimistic reports of Ukrainian forces taking armored vehicles across the river for the first time, and the Ukrainian army posted a statement claiming to have established “several strongholds.”
However, soldiers on the ground described a grim scene, telling The Times about difficult conditions, brutal fighting, and growing casualties.
Oleksiy spoke to The Times out of frustration at the high rate of soldiers dying.
“I did not see anything like this in Bakhmut or Soledar,” he said. “It’s so wasteful.”
The battles of Bakhmut or Soledar, in the country’s east, are known to have been among the most intense of the war.
Soldiers speaking to The Times said that the bodies are literally piling up. Oleksiy described how troops arriving to fight often had to step on soldiers’ bodies lying in the mud.
A deputy company commander, Volodymyr, told The Times that some dead marines have been lying on the river bank for as long as two months because intense shelling makes it difficult to collect the bodies.
Oleksiy also criticized the Ukrainian command for poor preparation and logistics, which meant that in some cases, wounded men had to be left behind because there were not enough boats.
“People who end up there are not prepared psychologically,” he said. “They don’t even understand where they are going. They are not told by the command that sends them there.”
Earlier this month, a Ukrainian soldier told the BBC that marines sent to help defend recent Ukrainian advances on the Dnipro river were so inexperienced they couldn’t even swim.
In the BBC News report, the soldier said Ukrainian forces were experiencing serious shortages in equipment and reinforcements as they defended their positions, which were under relentless Russian attack.
The troops also described difficulties with the landscape, with the river bank being muddy and swamp-like and scattered with craters filled with water.
The environment means that in most places there is nowhere to dig in, soldiers told The Times.
Despite the difficult conditions, Ukrainian soldiers and marines are continuing to put up a fight, and Russia has also suffered high casualties.
The cross-river mission is currently not striving for a major breakthrough, but is prioritizing eliminating as many Russian soldiers as possible and taking out Russian artillery, Yevhen Karas, deputy commander of the 14th Separate Regiment, told the paper.