The photos taken by the Ukrainian soldier Viktor Borinets, at the beginning of this story, are from the trenches of Donetsk.
Here, Russian soldiers are on the offensive to take the city of Bakhmut, which had 80,000 inhabitants before the war.
Despite weeks of hard fighting, the Russians have failed to break through the Ukrainian defenses.
Ukrainian soldiers have strengthened their positions over the past week.
The autumn rain created sticky mud.
The images of the Ukrainian soldier have been highlighted for their similarity to what was seen during World War I and World War II, when German soldiers were stranded in Soviet Ukraine.
– There will probably be more trench warfare in the future, explains Lieutenant Colonel and Dean of the Norwegian Defense Academy, Geir Hågen Karlsen.
– Close-ups of soldiers in a muddy, ruined environment are not unlike what they were like a hundred years ago, he explains.
– What characterizes trench warfare?
– It’s a war of attrition. There is heavy shelling, heavy losses. Soldiers sitting in cold, muddy trenches losing their comrades. It’s a big burden.
Earlier this fall, Russian soldiers fled from Kharkiv to the north, having been led from redoubt to redoubt of a Ukrainian offensive.
Early November Ukrainian soldiers took the important city of Kherson.
A long and stubborn offensive that began with the attack on the bridges across the Dnipro River and isolated the Russian forces in August, it finally led to a Russian retreat.
– In Kharkiv they were put to flight by a Ukrainian offensive. In Kherson the Russians retreated. In Bakhmut it is the Russians who have attacked, but without getting anywhere in particular.
Karlsen says Russian troops suffered heavy losses at Bakhmut and dissatisfaction with how the war is going has been expressed.
The military expert, who has followed the progress of the war with a skeptical eye from the outset, believes that the Russian attacks on Bakhmut were characterized by soldiers with low motivation, poor training and inadequate leadership.
There are now many indications that Ukrainian reinforcements were sent out of Kherson and eastward towards Bakhmut.
The access granted to photojournalists to Ukrainian-controlled areas is entirely new on this front and shows that Ukrainian forces want the focus to be on the fighting there.
– Being able to keep Bakhmut has local value for the development of the ground war in Donetsk. But that’s not where war is decided, says Karlsen.
It is difficult for the Ukrainians to recapture new areas, starting with Bakhmut’s front.
– Ukraine wants more tanks. It’s because you need armored units if you want to succeed in an offensive in this area, explains Karlsen.
– Mud is a big challenge. It actually becomes easier to wage war when the winter gets serious and the ground gets colder.
