ZAPORIZKA REGION, Ukraine — The day after the struggle started, after their unit was practically worn out in a missile strike, Ukrainian Sgt. Oleksandr Gorvat offered his girlfriend and commanding officer, First Lt. Olena Petyak, a hoop he had twisted collectively from wire and requested for her hand in marriage.
“Officially we’re not supposed to serve together, but we are not officially married,” he defined on Friday, amid the whoosh of Grad rockets being fired at close by Russian positions. “That is for after the war. As soon as we win.”
Together with their unit, the 128th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade, the couple, each 25, had been dug right into a frontline place within the Zaporizka area of south-central Ukraine, east of the Dnipro River and solely about two miles from the place Russian forces had been trying to overrun extra territory.
Fierce preventing was underway on Friday throughout a band of southeastern Ukraine, in and round main cities like Polohy, Orikhiv and Vasylivka, which is on the banks of the Dnipro. It fell to the troops of the 128th to forestall Russian forces from pushing farther north towards the necessary industrial metropolis of Zaporizhzhia, simply 20 miles north of Vasylivka on the river.
The Kremlin has achieved one among its strategic targets, seizing a strip of land alongside the Azov Sea, linking the Donbas area within the east, now the main target of the struggle, with Crimea, the peninsula President Vladimir V. Putin invaded and annexed in 2014. The solely important pocket of resistance remaining is a sprawling metal mill advanced within the ruined port metropolis of Mariupol, the place Ukrainian fighters and civilians are in underground bunkers, underneath heavy bombardment.
But the Russians had been trying this week to increase that ribbon of territory, pushing north from the coast towards Zaporizhzhia. Other Russian forces had been pushing west by Donbas, the place on Friday a number of the heaviest fight was being waged across the metropolis of Sievierodonetsk and the city of Popasna. Moscow’s military was additionally advancing southward from town of Izium. Altogether, the entrance line is about 300 miles lengthy.
Moscow’s separatist proxies in Donbas, backed by Russian gear and troops, have held a part of the area since 2014, and Russia has mentioned that it goals to increase its territory there. How far Mr. Putin will go is unclear, however the Kremlin seems intent on trapping a lot of the Ukrainian navy in a pincer and destroying it.
Lieutenant Petyak, who’s second in charge of the brigade, mentioned the objective within the Zaporizhzhia area — the southwestern a part of that entrance line — was not simply to carry the Russians at a standstill however to push them again.
“The enemy is constantly firing with artillery, tanks, Grads, and aviation in our direction,” she mentioned. “They want to knock out this section, but they won’t be able to do it because we’re here. On the contrary they are going to have to give up their positions because I’m certain that sometime soon we will push forward and take the remainder of the land that they’ve been able to temporarily occupy.”
That might show a problem, even for the Ukrainian forces, which have shocked navy analysts {and professional} troopers with their fierce and efficient protection for the reason that begin of the struggle.
After Mr. Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces based mostly within the Crimean Peninsula, a number of the nation’s most expert and well-equipped, lunged north, gobbling up territory in southern Ukraine each within the course of Kherson, west of the Dnipro, and east towards Mariupol.
Early within the morning of Feb. 24, the troopers of the 128th brigade discovered the struggle had begun when a Russian cruise missile hit their base, simply lacking the barracks the place they slept. The troops had been capable of escape into the close by woods.
It was the subsequent day, as they scrambled to regroup and be part of the fight towards the invading Russians, that Sergeant Gorvat proposed.
At first the brigade was deployed within the neighborhood of Melitopol, a southern metropolis about halfway between Crimea and Zaporizhzhia. But they’ve been pushed again practically 70 miles to the north. They are actually entrenched in a patch of woods wedged between wheat fields which can be brilliant inexperienced with spring development.
Ukrainians who dwell within the coastal territory that Russia has seized proceed to surge north in search of refuge in Ukrainian-held lands. Convoys of vehicles and buses, laden with suitcases, arrive frequently on the car parking zone of a house items retailer in Zaporizhzhia. Many arrive with unsettling tales of the Russian occupation.
“It’s total lawlessness,” mentioned Natalya Gorbova, who arrived in Zaporizhzhia on Thursday along with her 17-year outdated son, Egor. They had fled Melitopol, whose mayor was kidnapped by Russian forces and dragged from his workplace with a bag over his head. He was solely launched after Ukraine agreed to a prisoner swap.
“If you stay home, it’s fine,” Ms. Gorbova mentioned, “but there are these guys walking around with guns who do whatever they want.”
In Ukrainian territory, she mentioned, “it’s easier to breathe.”
Ukraine’s entrance line positions buzz with surveillance drones that Russian forces use to focus on their artillery. At one level on Friday, Capt. Vitaliy Nevinsky, the commander of the 128th, dispersed a bunch of troopers chatting shut collectively round a campfire, lest a drone direct an artillery strike into the center of their gathering.
The first weeks of the struggle had been a baptism by hearth for the 128th. At one level, Captain Nevinsky defined, his forces had been surrounded and needed to punch their approach by the Russian traces. Captain Nevinsky, 25, mentioned he was driving on a tank, masking the unit’s escape when it was hit by a shell. He suffered shrapnel wounds and a concussion, however returned to the entrance traces two weeks later.
His brigade is healthier outfitted now, he mentioned, with antitank missiles offered by the Americans and the British, in addition to Stinger antiaircraft missiles and different superior weapons techniques. These have helped sluggish the Russian forces down, he mentioned. This week, he mentioned, the brigade has taken out two Russian T-72 tanks that strayed too near their positions.
“We are on our own land,” he mentioned. “We are defending ourselves and knocking out this horde, this invasion of our territory.”