Journalist Konstantin Goncharov worked with DW until 2022, when he, like many Ukrainians, returned home to join the volunteer army defending against Russian invaders. The following is his personal report on three years of war in his country.
Nothing, not international sanctions nor loud political threats, could stopRussia’s military aggression toward Ukraine. Nor is Vladimir Putin deterred by his own troop losses. On the contrary, every battlefield defeat has forced the Russian Federation to look for new ways to inflict damage rather than abandon the war.
In almost three years I have seen how the Russian army has changed, how the battlefield is transforming, how our defenses adapt to the war — like a living organism that has landed in a hostile environment.
The Ukrainian army has not only learned how to survive in this terrain but even learned how to use modern technologies to turn the environment to their advantage. Still, no technology can replace the most important thing in this war — the enlisted soldier who stands with his or her homeland despite exhaustion, pain and fear.
Ukraine adapts to war: From guns to drones
You never forget your first deployment to the front: The ground rumbles under your feet, the sky is torn apart by explosions, burning houses crumple, fragments of shrapnel whistle loudly as they sail past, you hear screams in the distance.
It was the moment I experienced real war for the first time, with all of its chaos and relentlessness. I can remember the first rounds — short, ratchet-like, like the incessant tapping of reality. Shots pierce tree branches, hit metal. The smell of fire and gunpowder fills the lungs and seems to be on one’s tongue — bitter, sulphuric, as if dozens of fireworks had been set off at the same time. But there is nothing to celebrate here. It is the bitter reality of war.
My career in the army began in reconnaissance planes with an airborne brigade that liberated the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions and fought in Donetsk and Zaphorizhia. First we fought for every square centimeter, then for every street, every ruined house in a city destroyed in artillery clashes and bombings.
After an injury and months of rehabilitation, I was transferred to a unit responsible for radio-electronic surveillance. Now, information is my weapon, not a machine gun. By analyzing radio signals we can observe enemy movements, control points, drones, and all the other activity you need to execute an electronic war.
Not only has my role in the war changed, the war itself has, too. And now, a decisive new factor has arrived on the battlefield: Drones. Fitted with cameras that broadcast images to a pilot on the ground, shortly after the invasion drones seemed like a forced improvisation, a desperate attempt to compensate for a lack of ammunition. Today they are high-tech weapons on par with anything else. Trenches, hide-outs, tanks — everything is being targeted in a battle of drone pilots: Who can find, fix and finish the enemy faster?
With the development of drones comes another challenge — defending against them. Electronic warfare, the destruction of radio signals is improving at a mind-boggling pace and forces drone pilots to change frequency daily, improve communications algorithms and come up with new ways to pilot drones. No advantage lasts long. The drone war takes endless hard work from programmers and engineers.
The limits of human capacity
Yet none of these technical advantages can restore power and energy to those constantly under pressure at the front lines. After three years, the rotation of infantry units has become a problem for the Ukrainian army. Tired soldiers, on the front for weeks, sometimes months, desperately wait to be replaced, losing vigilance and fighting morale. Sleeplessness fogs the mind, bodies are weakened by lack of food and water. In moments like this you don’t think about or analyze a situation any more, you just function, reacting to acute dangers and following orders.
Soldiers fight for months, sometimes years, without getting a chance to return to their normal lives for just a few days. Even just a short break would make it possible to return to the front with more strength, but these days every battle-ready unit is worth its weight in gold.
On most sections along the front, Ukraine’s fighting forces are engaged in strategic defensive maneuvers, meaning commanders don’t have the right to simply withdraw troops. If they did, a gap would open up, which the enemy would immediately seek to exploit. As long as the war keeps raging, soldiers will stay where they are and continue to undergo superhuman trials.
Paradoxically, the war seems to be at its most violent in the relatively bucolic rural cities. Tired from all of the air-raid alarms, peaceful residents go about their daily lives as if they were expecting some tragedy — which they are incapable of stopping — to occur at any moment. It’s easier on the front, everything is clear here. One order, one task, one enemy. The main objective is to be efficient, not only does your own survival depend on it, it also determines how much more quickly victory can be achieved.
The power to resist
The war has changed me. Something that began as abstract and incomprehensible has become an everyday chore within the brutal reality of which there remains space for moments of joy: A cup of tea after a rough day, the chance to wash, a few hours of silence between explosions. A true joy is the sight of drones taking out enemy projectiles targeting our fortifications.
Of course, I want to return to my family, my peaceful life and my favorite pastimes, to never have to shovel, freeze in wet trenches, never to have to dream of instant noodles, hot water, a bathroom or clean clothes ever again. Every one of us is exhausted but we cannot give up. We have no choice but to keep fighting — not for ourselves, but for our fallen, for those waiting for us at home. For the right to live in freedom.
I don’t believe in a quick peace because I don’t see any common ground for compromise between the two sides. Why would an aggressor end a war in which his “creeping offensive” keeps delivering more and more of Ukraine? Russia won’t back off on its own, it can only be stopped by organized resistance. It is only when infantry, drones, technology and an invincible fighting spirit are combined that the enemy has no chance of advancing.
At the same time, each delay in the delivery of international assistance gives the enemy time to strengthen its position. That is clear to everyone on the front. But our fight will continue, despite political change and the hesitancy of our foreign partners. Even if a few leading politicians try to pin blame for this war of aggression on us, our opposition will not relent. For ultimately, we are not only protecting our territory but also our identity and our right to a future.
This article was originally published in Russian and was translated from German by Jon Shelton
