Drones, Mines and Snipers: Ukraine’s Front Line Is a World Away from Peace Talks

Hunted by drones, stalked by snipers and surrounded by minefields, soldiers fighting in Ukraine can’t risk even a small lapse in concentration.

That is why Col. Dmytro Palisa, commander of Ukraine’s 33rd Mechanized Brigade, instructs his soldiers to ignore speculation about a possible cease-fire.

“They start relaxing, they start overthinking, putting on rose-colored glasses, thinking that tomorrow will be easier. No,” he said in an interview at a command post on the eastern front. “We shoot until we are given the order to stop.”

As diplomats thousands of miles away talk about a possible truce, Russia and Ukraine are engaged in bloody battles as intense as any of the war. The furious fighting, tearing across the Ukrainian front, is, in part, a late play for land and leverage in the talks, which the Trump administration says are making progress.