With Russian forces firmly in control of the devastated city, Bakhmut has endured months of combat as a counteroffensive by Ukrainian troops grinds along its northern and southern flanks.
Exhausted Ukrainian Forces Battle On Near Bakhmut As Winter Approaches
Explosives are prepared for a kamikaze first-person-view (FPV) drone that will be dropped on Russian forces near the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut on December 12.
U.S. officials estimate that Ukraine's armed forces have been losing 10,000 drones a month, mainly due to Russian jamming.
Using a flashlight with a red gel to conceal their positions, Ukrainian soldiers operate a drone under cover of night.
Drones have become a vital element in Kyiv's war against Moscow's forces, offering inexpensive real-time intelligence as well as the ability to drop explosives with lethal results.
A Ukrainian soldier views a drone monitor that shows the body of a Russian soldier killed by a kamikaze FPV drone.
Russia and Ukraine are both deploying thousands of drones above the battlefield.
Meanwhile, other soldiers operate another kamikaze drone.
According to a senior Ukrainian military official, soldiers and tanks operating out in the open have only a few minutes before they are targeted due to the sheer quantity of drones patrolling above the battlefield.
A Ukrainian soldier launches a drone.
"Today, a column of tanks or a column of advancing troops can be discovered in three to five minutes and hit in another three minutes," Major General Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy commander of Ukraine's HUR military-intelligence service, told The Wall Street Journal.
Ukrainian tank crews work quickly to take up positions near Bakhmut before they are themselves targeted on December 13.
Despite some advances, the major counteroffensive mounted by Kyiv six months ago has fallen far short, with both sides now facing the reality of positional warfare.
With the onset of winter on the steppes of the Donbas, Ukrainian soldiers are set on holding the line.
In some cases, the front line is not far from where it was on the eve of Russia's full-scale invasion after nearly eight years of fighting in the region.