Ukraine is losing the battle on the ground. Many of its soldiers are tired and exhausted after three years of fighting. The question – can the country endure another year of war?Their forces are still resisting Russian advances in the east. But they’re almost surrounded near the town of Kurakhove – scene to some of the most intense fighting in recent weeks.
The Black Pack, a mortar unit, is trying to prevent their encirclement around Kurakhove. The Russian are closing in on three sides.
We meet the team at a safe house, getting a rest from the fighting. They’re not your average soldiers. They include a vegan chef, a mechanic, a web developer and an artist. A group of friends with non-conformist views.
Some call themselves anarchists. They all volunteered to fight.
Surt, their 31-year-old commander, joined the army soon after Russia’s full scale invasion. He tells me at the start he thought the war would last three years. Now, he says, he’s mentally preparing himself for another ten years of fighting.
They all know that Donald Trump wants to bring an end to the war. Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s president have indicated they’re prepared for talks too, but the idea of workable deal seems hard to imagine.
So far, it is just talk about talks.
Surt is not dismissive of Trump’s goal.
“He is quite an ambitious person and I think he will try to do it,” he says. But he worries about the outcome of any negotiations.
“We are realists, we understand there will be no justice for Ukraine – many will have to swallow the fact that their homes are destroyed by rockets and shells, that their loved ones were killed, and this will be hard.”
When I ask him whether he’d prefer to negotiate or to keep on fighting – Surt replies emphatically: “Keep fighting.”
It’s a view reflected by most of the unit. Serhiy, the vegan chef, believes negotiations would just temporarily freeze the war – “and the conflict will return in a year or two.”
He admits the current situation is “not good” for Ukraine. But he too is ready to carry on fighting. Being killed, he says, “is just an occupational hazard.”