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NEAR KREMINNA, Ukraine – The sound of artillery being launched and landed along the front line has silenced the forest just a few miles away, where medics are waiting to receive the wounded.
On the horizon, a military vehicle drives down a dusty road and stops when it reaches the trees. A soldier named Valentyn parked there for natural camouflage from Russian drones searching Ukrainian military positions.
A group of soldiers, visibly shaken, hurriedly released the three bodies they had just recovered from the front line, placed them in plastic bags and sealed them shut. His position was overrun and then attacked by drones, he said.
“They shot at you from all sides. You turned, ran, got hit, and couldn’t escape,” said Maksym, who survived the attack. “This is a great tragedy for us.”
“One body was left behind by a Russian soldier,” he said.
While much of the world’s attention has focused on the bloody city war taking place in Bakhmut, the Russian campaign in eastern Ukraine is also raging in the forests and fields about 50 miles north of the city, near Kreminna. Here, the soldiers took up positions in trenches surrounded by tall, slender trees, bending over to avoid the direct line of the Russian enemy.
“People say it’s very difficult in Bakhmut,” said Valentyn, who joined the army seven months ago. “But it’s also very difficult here.”
For the past month, Valentyn had been stationed at this evacuation point, returning to the front line almost every day to rescue wounded soldiers and recover the dead. His job required him to drive directly into Russian troops, and he often came under fire.
“There is nothing good about it,” said Valentyn. “What is this war for?”
Ukrainian and Russian military officials are reluctant to release data on casualties in their ranks, although US government and military experts estimate that both sides have suffered significant losses in the tens or hundreds of thousands.
For Valentyn, the work of responding to the victim was grim and unrelenting.
“There was blood everywhere,” he said, as he cleaned it up from his vehicle. “The smell. Especially fresh blood.”
Bright red liquid splattered on his fingers as he rinsed the bloody cloth. He dropped the cloth and used it again to wipe the back seat.
“It’s hard to see a boy die,” Valentyn said. “Sometimes I cry quietly.”
In quieter times when no one could flee, Valentyn went into the forest to transport soldiers to and from the contact line, where Ukrainian and Russian soldiers were sometimes positioned just hundreds of meters apart.
He said at least one group of soldiers was unable to enter the position because the Russian army had taken over.
“Every day is scary here,” said Viktor, the soldier who returned with Valentyn. “I feel worried, for our country and our lives.”
His stoic face reflected the fear and horror known only to those who had witnessed a battle in the jungle.
“People who haven’t been in will never know.”
Benjamin Laffin, Oksana Nesterenko, Adam Coll and Haley Willis contributed reporting.
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