Talking to the exhausted but resolved on the – Latest News
A typical sound of the suburbs echoes by means of the Saltivka district of northern Kharkiv — a low, buzzing buzz like a lawnmower. Yet no person has their own garden on this huge Soviet housing project, and there’s barely a blade of grass in sight.
Instead, the high-pitched noise in Saltivka’s concrete jungle comes from Iranian-made Russian drones, whose low-cost gasoline engines sound identical to the average home lawnmower.
Russian forces have been pounding Kharkiv with them for the final month, aiming to knock out energy provides as the winter temperatures plummet to -13 Fahrenheit.
But as the drones aren’t identified for his or her accuracy, many crash-land in Saltivka, whose high-rises on Kharkiv’s northern outskirts lie simply 20 miles from the Russian border.
The newest one slammed into a five-story tower block on Tuesday afternoon, leaving the prime two flooring a blackened wreck and injuring six, together with a 90-year outdated girl. By native requirements, that made it a low casualty rely — if accidentally quite than design.
“I have lost count of how many times they’ve fired drones at us in the last month,” Kharkiv’s weary-looking fire brigade spokesman advised The Post at the scene. “The Russians try to hit vital infrastructure, but to be trustworthy, there’s no actual logic to their strikes in any respect — it may be kindergartens, faculties, hospitals, no matter.
“It’s all just to try and destabilize us. But whenever it happens, our emergency services come together, we clean things and we replace windows. We are the best.”
Kharkiv exhibits struggle
Odd as it could appear, the spokesman takes a sure municipal satisfaction in Kharkiv’s capability to take punishment. This might partly be due to the busloads of helpers who arrive at each bombing with a pop-up stall dishing out scorching soup and tea.
Firefighters working to extinguish a blaze at an house building hit by a Russian drone strike in Kharkiv on Feb. 3, 2026. REUTERS/Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy
But it could additionally mirror how Kharkiv — the regional capital of Ukraine’s northeast — is coping higher than Kyiv, which has likewise been pounded by Russia during the latest cold snap.
On Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky lashed out at Kyiv’s mayor, boxing champion-turned-politician Vitali Klitschko, for doing “not enough” to stop the blackouts, which left 500 house blocks nonetheless with out heat.
Conditions right here in Kharkiv are nonetheless grim, nonetheless. Last week, a mixed drone and missile strike quickly knocked out 80% of the metropolis’s energy and suspended subway providers. And not like Kyiv, which has not had Russian troops on its doorstep since the month-long siege at the begin of conflict, Kharkiv additionally nonetheless has frontlines very close. The nearest are about 15 miles north of Saltivka, down a snow-bound highway the place navy check-points are draped with anti-drone nets.
A home destroyed by a Russian drone strike in Kharkiv on Jan. 24, 2026. ZUMAPRESS.com
For the Ukrainian troopers manning trenches, even a flat with out energy would possibly appear to be a luxurious. Maxim Rudyi does 20 days at a time in his dug-out in the frozen earth, with solely a small fuel heater for heat.
“I use it mainly just for warming up my hands, in case I have to write or do anything fiddly,” he stated, eating a pork sandwich at a roadside grill earlier than heading in for one more 20-day stint. “Otherwise, I just keep warm with the adrenalin — the nearest Russian positions are only about a kilometer away.”
Coldest winter
Because of the risk from so-called loitering drones, which hold in the sky searching for targets, Rudyi and his comrades can no longer attain their positions by vehicle. Instead, they need to trudge 15 miles by means of the snow, carrying 66 kilos of tools. That in flip necessitates longer stays on the frontline, with comrades typically hospitalized by frostbite. Even rest room breaks are perilous.
“Taking a s–t outside is terrifying,” Rudyi grins. “You know a drone might come for you and it’s impossible to relax.”
Ukrainian troops making an attempt to keep heat during a coaching train in the excessive cold close to Kharkiv on Jan. 23, 2026. MARIA SENOVILLA/EPA/Shutterstock
Meanwhile, in Abu Dhabi, Zelensky met with American and Russian officers this week for one more spherical of President Trump’s peace talks, which have now been dragging on for practically a yr. Ahead of the assembly, Zelensky advised French TV that 55,000 Ukrainian troopers have died.
The talks stay deadlocked over Vladimir Putin’s demand for Ukraine to give up 4 key cities in the jap Donbas area, which Kyiv fears will merely whet Moscow’s urge for food for more.
Not that anybody on Kharkiv’s frontlines follows the talks a lot. Many haven’t even heard of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s {golfing} buddy turned presidential negotiator to Russia. And those that did listen at first have now largely misplaced curiosity due to the lack of progress.
Instead, in the time-honored custom of trench warfare, all most Ukrainian troopers can actually afford to take into consideration is the fast patch of land they’re defending. Which, in the coldest winter since the conflict, is no longer muddy steppe but one giant, shell-scarred ice rink.
The trenches start to resemble bob-sleigh runs, making it onerous to transfer with out falling. And at occasions, the solely factor that also appears to work are the troopers’ Kalashnikovs — well-known for being the most sturdy weapons in the world.
“Everything ceases to function in this weather — smart phone batteries die super-quickly, and vehicles often won’t start,” stated “Gregory,” one other soldier at the roadside grill. “I can’t begin to explain how tough it is — all we have is each other and our black humor.”
‘Everyone’s exhausted’
One soldier whose providers are a lot in demand is “Sergei,” who labored as a civilian roadside mechanic earlier than the conflict. Today, he runs a quite more harmful breakdown service — answering calls from tanks and navy automobiles which have damaged down on the frontlines.
“I was always known as a quick mechanic so when I volunteered for the army I was asked to the same job,” stated Sergei, 33. “Fixing an old Soviet-era tank is often actually easier than doing a modern BMW or Lada, as they don’t have any fancy electronics that go wrong — some of those we use are 50 years old or more.”
A Ukrainian soldier inside a tank close to the entrance line in the Donetsk area on Jan. 26, 2026. REUTERS
In the excessive cold, one hazard is tanks’ metallic caterpillar tracks freezing to the ground, leaving them caught fast. No breakdown van can tow a 40-ton T-72. “The only thing that is strong enough to do that is another tank,” Sergei says.
One impact of extraordinarily cold climate used to be that it led to a lull in the preventing, with either side just too cold to need to go on the offensive. With a lot of the warfare performed now by remote-controlled drones, nonetheless, there’s no actual let-up.
“Everyone’s exhausted, and conditions are awful — we share the dug-outs with mice and rats, who also want to get away from the cold,” Sergei stated. “Everybody just wants to finish the war, but I’m not sure that’s ever going to happen. The frontlines are pretty static, and short of one side or other using an atom bomb, I don’t think anyone is going to prevail.”
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Four years of hell
True, Kharkiv has been by means of worse than this and survived. In the first days of the conflict, Russian troops poured over the border, solely to be overwhelmed back on the metropolis’s outskirts, giving Ukraine one of its first main victories.
The Kremlin then mounted a second attempt to take Kharkiv in summer season 2024, capturing the close by border city of Vovchansk and slowly pushing to their present positions north of Saltivka. But thanks to the Russians’ superior provides of manpower, shells and drones, no person is sure how for much longer the Ukrainians can maintain out.
Feb. 24 will mark the fourth anniversary of the conflict — and 4 years during which Gregory has barely seen his daughter, who was 4 when it started. She is an element of a new technology of conflict youngsters whose fathers’ presence of their lives is principally through patchy Zoom calls from the trenches.
“I’d say I’ve seen her no more than about two months in total over the last four years,” he stated. “The rest of the time I’m just a Dad online. I’d really like all this to end soon, but do I honestly think it will? No.”
Colin Freeman is the writer of “The Mad and The Brave: The Untold Story of Ukraine’s Foreign Legion.”
