Two Years Into Russian Invasion, Ukrainian Soldiers Reflect On The State Of The War

Two years after Russia's full-scale invasion began, many Ukrainians sense that their country could soon find itself under unbearable pressure.

Speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference a week ago, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy repeated a message he had delivered at the same forum days before the invasion: If Ukraine is left to go it alone, Russia will destroy it, and Russian aggression can only be stopped by force.

As Western leaders debated in Bavaria, Russian forces seized Avdiyivka, a city in the Donbas that has been at the heart of the war in Ukraine since 2014. With U.S. aid in doubt and Russia pushing for further gains, the coming year is crucial to the country's fate.

Two years after missiles rained down across the country and Russian forces attacked from the north, east, and south, RFE/RL spoke to soldiers it had encountered in earlier reporting on the war.

Here is what they said.

'Painful Mathematics'

Volodymyr, 54, left his job as a doctor in Kyiv at the beginning of the all-out war and has treated hundreds of soldiers wounded in the long, bloody battle for Avdiyivka.

Speaking to RFE/RL near the front in December, he said that on some days his team's triage unit treated several dozen badly wounded soldiers.

"The Russian Army is ready to lay down any number of [its soldiers'] lives to reach its goal," Volodymyr said at the time. "The killing will go on until one side is exhausted."

At a triage site near Avdiyivka in early December, the wounded come in waves -- sometimes dozens of soldiers in a single day.

Recently rotated out of the proximity of the now Russian-controlled city, he told RFE/RL that in retrospect, the withdrawal from Avdiyivka was "inevitable" in the face of the Russian advantage in personnel and shells.

"War is painful mathematics," Volodymyr said. "Without weapons, we are forced to die or lose territory."

The number of Ukrainian casualties is a state secret. In mid-August, U.S. officials spoke unofficially of 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed and 120,000 wounded -- figures that do not include civilians. The corresponding numbers for the Russian side were 120,000 killed and 170,000-180,000 wounded.

Roughly one-fifth of Ukraine's territory -- parts of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, and Kharkiv regions, as well as the entire Crimean Peninsula -- is under Russian occupation. According to the Kyiv-based Zmina human rights center, at least 5 million Ukrainians remain in Russian-held areas.

After almost two years spent near Avdiyivka, Volodymyr will continue his service elsewhere. He does not expect the war to end this year and believes a diplomatic settlement of the conflict is not likely anytime soon.

"We will not give up, because we did in the past and it resulted in subjugation and Holodomor," he said, referring to the demise of the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic in 1921 and the man-made famine that killed millions of Ukrainians under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1932–33.

The war in Ukraine started in 2014, when Russia occupied Crimea and fomented armed separatism in the Donbas, and escalated dramatically when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. But many Ukrainians, like Volodymyr, see it as a continuation of Russian centuries-old imperial policy against their nation.

Futile Hopes

When Grizzly, 34, a deputy commander of a battalion that has fought in over 20 locations in the north, east, and south of Ukraine, spoke to RFE/RL last August, he said his view of the fighting was becoming "less bright every month."

Speaking at the high point of Ukraine's counteroffensive aimed at driving a wedge into the Russian-occupied territory in the south, he said he hoped that General Valeriy Zaluzhniy, then the commander in chief of the armed forces, had "a joker in his hand" -- a wild card that could tip the balance in Kyiv's favor.

Grizzly, 34, a deputy commander of a battalion that has fought in over 20 locations in the north, east, and south of Ukraine

But that hope proved futile, Grizzly -- his military call sign -- told RFE/RL recently. He said his unit has lost a significant number of soldiers and that recruits, who come in small numbers, are usually poorly motivated. The unit has been recently transferred to the area around Kupyansk, in the Kharkiv region, where heavy fighting has been ongoing for months.

Optimists stress that over the past year, Ukraine has regained control of the western part of the Black Sea, allowing the export of grain to the wider world, has destroyed part of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and has had some success striking deep into Russian territory.

But as the Ukrainian steppe turned into an enormous minefield shadowed by tens of thousands of drones and guarded by hundreds of thousands of soldiers, hopes of a military breakthrough have given way, for many in Ukraine, to fears that forces low on ammunition and personnel may fail to hold the line.

"In fact, we are in a worse negotiating position now than we had been a year ago," Grizzly said.

The front in southern Ukraine has shifted only marginally despite the deliveries of Western-made weapons and training for Ukrainian soldiers in NATO member states. Russia, meanwhile, succeeded in militarizing its industry and kept the informal mobilization of soldiers going, he said.

Military analysts say substantial Russian gains could at some point push Ukraine into peace talks on Moscow's terms.

Grizzly, an entrepreneur in civilian life who first fought for Ukraine in the Donbas in 2015, said he believes that without "deep reforms" Ukraine's war effort "will be at best stuck."

"But attempts to reform are halted by the government's lack of trust in its people," he said. "Our old problems did not vanish with the new war."

'Left To Face Russia Alone'

In March 2023, Ivan Mishchenko, 45, a Supreme Court judge turned volunteer soldier, told RFE/RL that while Ukrainians are fighting against a stronger adversary, the greatest danger lies in corruption and weak state institutions. "If we lose the support of the whole civilized world, we will be left to face Russia alone," he said at the time.

Mishchenko, who volunteered to fight at the beginning of the invasion and spent several months at the front, later left the army to work with a European Union-backed commission responsible for appointing new judges and is now back at work at Ukraine's top court.

For Ukrainian Supreme Court Judge Ivan Mishchenko, the choice to fight on the front line was not a hard one. “If Russia wins, courts and judges will not be necessary in Ukraine,” he said.

"Of course, the war does have a negative impact on processes concerning human rights protection and democracy," he recently told RFE/RL. "We are not doing badly, but we need to continue the reforms."

Two years into the all-out war, Ukraine is still struggling to root out corruption in state institutions. Due to martial law and the constant threat of bomb attacks, elections cannot take place. Worries about the independent media are also on the rise.

With problems mounting on the front line, Zelenskiy -- still supported by most citizens but with trust ratings slipping as the war grinds on -- dismissed Zaluzhniy this month and shook up much of the military leadership.

The authorities are also expected to soon introduce a new law on military conscription. With fewer and fewer people willing to join the army, reforming a recruitment system that critics say is plagued by corruption and strengthens social inequality has become a highly controversial issue.

'Global Security Threat'

Mishchenko said that despite the setbacks and problems, Ukrainians' aims have not changed. "We want control over our internationally recognized territory, responsibility borne by those who started the war, and reparations."

Demonstrators take part in a rally in support of Ukraine to mark the second year of Russia's military invasion of Ukraine, at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on February 24.

According to polling, most Ukrainians believe the restoration of control over the entire country is the most likely end of the war. In a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology on February 5-10, about 65 percent of respondents said they believe in such an outcome, down from 71 percent in May 2022.

But amid geological uncertainty, with Donald Trump saying he would encourage Russia to "do whatever the hell they want" to any NATO country that doesn't meet military spending targets, Ukrainians are realizing that support for their cause is limited and uncertain.

"Some partners are helping more, others less. Many still don't understand that it is not a regional conflict but a global security threat and a war between two mutually exclusive worldviews," he said. "It's increasingly resembling the situation ahead of the last World War."