Large snowflakes drifted silently through the trees as two Soviet-era tanks roared to life and churned through the mud up the hill. It was daybreak on one of the last days of winter, and the tank commander and his deputy tramped through the snow checking on the men as they readied for battle.
“The snow will give us cover,” said the commander, Poltava, explaining that Russian reconnaissance Orlan-10 drones that frequently fly over Ukrainian positions would be hampered by the weather. “We will bear it. The main thing is for our enemy to have a hard time and go home.”
Like other members of the Ukrainian military in this article, he insisted on being identified only by his code name.
Equipped with Soviet-era tanks and relying on decades-old training, Poltava, 51, and his deputy, Chancellor, 57, embody the resilience of the Ukrainian Army. Trained at Ukraine’s Kharkiv Tank Institute more than 30 years ago, they were plucked from the ranks of volunteers soon after Russia invaded Ukraine last year and sent to lead a tank company. They have been fighting ever since.
Their training has kept the men alive and their unit operational month after month. They even expanded their arsenal with a Russian T-72 tank captured in a battle in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, though they expressed frustration with the slow pace of deliveries of promised western battle tanks that would enable them to take the battle to the Russians.
“We need western equipment so that we can go out at night,” Chancellor said, “and good communication and good optics. Here, it’s all old.”
The two men graduated from the tank academy within a few years of each other — Chancellor in 1988 and Poltava in 1992. It was a tumultuous time, with the breakup of the Soviet Union and more than a dozen former Communists countries and Soviet republics gaining independence, and neither continued his military career for long.
The two commanders were grateful for western support to Ukraine in the war against Russia, but they are still struggling with Soviet-era equipment, which needs frequent maintenance. This month, one of their tanks, returning from battle in the evening, stalled repeatedly, belching white smoke. And they had to buy their own radios, which they wear strapped to their chests.
Like many of the Ukrainian units that have been battling to hold the city ofBakhmut from a months-long Russian offensive, they are hoping the Western tanks will give them the upper hand against the Russians, who have a numerical advantage in equipment and personnel. Yet, even as they have heard promises from western capitals of British Challengers, German Leopards and American Abrams tanks, they have been told to hold the lines with the tanks they have.
“We realise that while our colleagues are training on new equipment, we have to hold,” Poltava said. “But we have a reasonable hope.”
His deputy is more impatient.
“You wake up and you think, Oh damn, I woke up in the war again,” he said. “Give me an Abrams or get me out of here!”
Their position had been shelled overnight, he said, and a few days earlier he and Poltava had narrowly escaped injury in an artillery strike.
“I’m standing there, and right behind the tank —WHAM!” he said. “Two and a half hours we were sitting in a hole. Commander, me anda dog.” Joking apart, the two commanders showed no signs of giving up the fight against Russia.
“They will not withdraw from Ukraine just like that,” Poltava said.
Chancellor said Ukrainians would fight even without western assistance. “We will beat them even with stones, but it will take longer,” he said. “We will beat them with sticks.” For all their difficulties, motivation remains high because Ukrainians have more reason to fight than the Russians do.
New York Times News Service
