A soldier from the 225th Separate Assault Regiment in a military tent in the Sumy region of Ukraine, on September 8. Photo / Brendan Hoffman, The New York Times
The Ukrainian infantryman spent 22 days in a foxhole.
Every attempt to climb up and advance towards a Russian-occupied village, he said, felt like a one-way trip.
“Constant mortar shelling. Drones flying overhead,” said the infantryman, who gave only his call sign, Knyaz, per military protocol.
“Running and hiding under trees. Digging into the tree lines. Sleeping there. Living there.”
After a month of fighting, Knyaz’s unit liberated the village, which is no bigger than a few streets, in the northeastern region of Sumy, according to independent groups monitoring the battlefield.
The village, Kindrativka, is one of two that Ukraine has retaken in the region this summer, and its forces are now pushing close to other Russian-held villages — modest gains that matter deeply to Kyiv.
The successful Ukrainian counterattack in Sumy, which borders Russia, is a rare twist on a battlefield dominated by Moscow’s forces.
Since May, Russia has captured 170 to 215 square miles (440-556sq km) of territory each month, according to DeepState, a group mapping battlefield changes.
Ukrainian commanders emphasise in interviews that they are constantly outmanned and outgunned by Russia.
Reclaiming small areas of Sumy helps Ukraine counter Moscow’s narrative that Russian advances are unstoppable and that Kyiv should settle for a peace deal now, even if it means giving up territory.
Moscow’s progress has stalled in Sumy to the point that it is moving troops from that area to other fronts, analysts say, including the eastern region of Donetsk, where it is trying to encircle several key cities.
Russia’s Sumy operation “has failed”, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine told reporters last week.
“They suffered significant losses, primarily in manpower,” Zelenskyy said of Russian forces, adding that those who remained were being redeployed.
Ukraine’s step forward in Sumy draws on familiar tactics like relentless drone strikes and small-group infantry assaults. But their execution by some of Kyiv’s elite units, including airborne troops, helped explain the advance.
The gains carry extra weight because they could weaken Russia’s negotiating hand.
Moscow has floated trading land captured in Sumy for territory it seeks in Donetsk as part of a peace deal. US President Donald Trump has backed the idea of such a “land swap”, though the Kremlin’s proposal is heavily unequal.
Maksym Skrypchenko, the president of the Transatlantic Dialogue Centre, a Kyiv-based think-tank working on talks to end the war, said that by reclaiming parts of Sumy, Ukraine aimed to weaken Moscow’s bargaining position. “Why should we swap territories if we can get them back?” he said.
Whether Ukraine has the military capacity to achieve that goal and pre-empt any plans for land swaps remains uncertain.
Moscow still wields superior firepower.
Relentless Russian bombings left the villages Ukraine retook in Sumy barely recognisable.
When a soldier from the 225th Separate Assault Regiment raised a Ukrainian flag in Kindrativka in July, drone footage from the regiment that was verified by the New York Times revealed entire streets reduced to rubble.
In addition, “for the past two years, they’ve always had superiority in numbers”, 1st Lieutenant Anvar, a battalion commander in the 225th also using his call sign, said of Russian forces in a recent interview from the region.
In many ways, his presence in Sumy embodies Ukraine’s own failure to dictate the terms of a potential land swap.
A year ago, Anvar was leading one of the first units to invade Russia’s western Kursk region, bordering Sumy. Zelenskyy later described the surprise offensive as an effort to capture Russian territory that could be exchanged for Ukrainian land.
Ukraine’s hold on Kursk unravelled this northern spring, after months of Russian assaults backed by North Korean troops.
Russian forces pushed Kyiv’s troops back into Sumy and then surged into the region, taking village after village. By mid-June, they were barely a dozen miles from the regional capital, also named Sumy, home to some 250,000 people.
Anvar’s regiment was urgently redeployed to the region to halt Russia’s advance.
He said his unit used the same tactics Moscow had employed to drive Ukrainian forces out of Kursk.
Firstly, it conducted relentless drone attacks on roads and vehicles to cut Russian supply lines. Then, once the enemy was exhausted and had no food or water, he said, the infantry attacked.
Gone are the large, mechanised assaults that marked the early part of the war.
They have been rendered impossible by constant drone surveillance and strikes.
Lieutenant-Colonel Ihor, a battalion commander in Ukraine’s 80th Air Assault Brigade, who asked to be identified only by his first name, also by military protocol, said soldiers now attacked in pairs.
They move “cautiously and quietly” a few dozen metres, dig a small dugout, fire on the enemy, then move again. For lack of safe roads, food and water supplies arrive by drone airdrops.
“The enemy sees everything, every move we make, and reacts instantly with strikes,” Ihor said.
That makes for brutal assaults stretching on for weeks. Recounting the fight for Kindrativka, four soldiers from the 225th Separate Assault Regiment looked drained, their faces etched with fatigue and their voices breaking every few minutes with harsh coughs.
“The first days, yes, it’s frightening,” said Sergeant Palma, 45, using his call sign. He added that soldiers quickly get used to the relentless shelling.
“The fear actually comes back when you rotate out. You sit in silence, and that’s scarier. Because silence means something is wrong. It means the Russians might be crawling toward you.”
Soldiers say survival on a battlefield where any movement is detected by drones comes down to digging foxholes and lying low. “The deeper you dig, the safer,” Palma said.
But drone operators are learning to hit even the smallest foxholes.
On a recent afternoon in the Sumy region, a drone operator from Ukraine’s 95th Air Assault Brigade clutched a drone’s controller and peered into goggles showing its live video feed. He practiced guiding the quadcopter through hoops only a few metres wide, mounted on posts in a field.
“It’s not about speed, but about skill and control,” said Lieutenant Andrii, the head of a drone platoon in the brigade, using his first name. In the background, gunfire rang out from other units training at the firing range.
Most of the troops had either just returned from or were about to deploy to Yunakivka, a larger village where Ukraine and Russia are locked in fierce battles.
The task may soon get easier for Kyiv after Russia’s recent move to redeploy troops from Sumy to Donetsk.
Vladyslav, a first lieutenant who is company commander in Ukraine’s 13th Separate Air Assault Battalion, which fights in Yunakivka, said new Russian troops they faced were less trained and less well-equipped. He also used just his first name.
The Russians retain a major advantage: guided bombs carrying hundreds of kilograms of explosives. Moscow uses them to pulverise defences before an assault and to crush Ukrainian offensives before they can gain ground.
Ihor said Russia often blanketed areas with the bombs, sometimes three to six at a time, flattening even underground bunkers.
He spoke from one such bunker near the front, hidden in a forest where the ridges of a sprawling tunnel network made it look as if a giant worm had burrowed through the earth.
“Even sitting in a trench or a dugout with several reinforced layers — when a guided bomb hits, it’s devastating,” he said.
“It’s not only physically destructive, it’s also psychologically exhausting.”
The village of Kindrativka attests to that potential for destruction.
Nataliya Biletchenko, 48, a resident of Sumy, recalled how a colleague had rejoiced at the liberation of Kindrativka, her home village.
The joy, however, was tempered by the fact that her house had been destroyed.
“Of course, she was happy,” Biletchenko said. “Still, she’s without a home, without anything.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Constant Méheut and Olha Konovalova
Photographs by: Brendan Hoffman
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