Ukrainians fight Russian mercenaries and plummeting temperatures in the Battle for Bakhmut
Standing by a makeshift stove at the bottom of a bitterly-cold ditch, the Ukrainian troops enjoyed a quick tea break.
Suddenly there was a loud whistle and a crack as a Russian artillery round flew overhead and exploded in a field behind them.
The soldiers barely flinched, hardened by months of war. Instead, their focus was on staying warm.
One of them even carried on calmly cutting into a plastic bottle.
Soldiers try to keep warm as temperatures plummet
The water inside had frozen solid as temperatures on the frontline plunged below zero.
Peeling away the plastic, he plonked the giant, bottle-shaped ice cube into a pan to melt.
Then came a second round, this one much closer, smashing into a road above them with a punishing crash.
“That was too near,” said a fellow soldier, before taking a sip of tea from a tin mug.
A Sky News team also in the large ditch had hit the ground at the sound of the first blast and was then ushered towards better cover after the second one – along with the troops.
This is the daily reality for Ukrainian soldiers holding defensive positions in trenches close to the frontline town of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
Sky’s Deborah Haynes is embedded with Ukrainian forces
Russian forces appear determined to try to take the town after suffering humiliating defeats in other parts of the country.
It has made the Battle for Bakhmut one of the fiercest of the war – described as a “meat grinder” because of the scale of the casualties.
One soldier, a company commander who asked to go by his first name Maks, vowed the Russians would never succeed.
“They will throw up more meat and we will destroy it,” he said. “They will launch rockets, but we will hide and then destroy them. They have no chance.”
In a trip on Monday that was cut short by the artillery attack, Maks and other members of a battalion in Ukraine’s 24th King Danylo Brigade showed Sky News around a line of trenches they were digging as part of efforts to help defend Bakhmut.
It is tough work even without the threat of enemy fire as soldiers must also battle the elements.
Armed with a shovel, a soldier called Serhii cut away at chunks of earth as he made a square-shaped trench.
“We are on our land, we need to defend our land,” he said, his breath frosty. “It’s hard but it’s needed.”
Signs of winter were all around – a rucksack and bedding, layered with frost; specks of white on the hard earth; and a green, woollen hat with a frosted covering, hanging off the bare branch of a tree.
These soldiers must fight, eat and sleep in the cold – but they know the Russians must endure the same, many with worse protective clothing.
Temperatures will likely drop even to minus 30 by January and February.
Analysts have said both sides may seek to slow or even pause the fighting when conditions become too harsh. But Ukrainians say they will push on as they have no other choice.
“We will fight – how can we stop?” said Orest, the battalion commander.
Read more:
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How will winter affect the war?
Ukrainian and western officials say Wagner, the Russian private military company, has sent large numbers of mercenaries – including convicted criminals released on condition they fight – to launch wave after wave of assaults against Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut.
Conventional Russian forces, withdrawn from the southern city of Kherson in the face of a Ukrainian counter-offensive last month, have also been added to the fight in recent days, increasing the pressure on Ukrainian lines.
Asked whether the Russians would capture the town, Orest said: “No …we will stop them.”
But Ukrainian troops are paying a heavy price as well.
The commander showed us where Russian rounds over the past two days had crashed into a field close to where his men had been digging, killing one of his soldiers.
This is meant to be a defensive line, set slightly back from the frontline action.
Orest said he has lost a total of seven troops in the past month, mainly doing assaults against Russian positions. He said the nearest Russian point is just over a mile away.
The change of season means there are no longer leaves on the trees, providing top cover from drones, sent to scout targets for artillery to strike – a new peril for both sides.
There is a constant threat of incoming fire – as we later discovered during the tea break.
That artillery attack went on for almost half an hour.
Each time a round struck, the ground shook – a terrifying experience, even from where we had been able to shelter.
Yet this deadly hazard is something the soldiers have grown almost immune to.
After a while, the commander said it was safe to leave.
We made a scramble up a bank of the ditch to our vehicle and sped off. For the troops, they stayed put, dug in for the winter war.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
Read more:
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
British surgeons on life in Gaza
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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