Why Ukrainians soldiers haven't left their combat positions for months

Rotation is postponed again

At three in the morning, the treeline seems alive. The wind whips at the bare branches, somewhere ahead, a mortar is firing with a dull thud, and above the black line of trees, a familiar buzzing sound echoes from time to time — not loud, almost mundane, which only makes it worse.

The guys have long since learned to distinguish that buzzing sound more quickly than their own phones' ringtone. FPV drone. Or a scout. Or a thermal imaging drone. In the dark, the difference doesn’t always matter.

One thing is certain: the rotation has been postponed again.

"It’s still on hold", the commander says briefly over the radio.

Six men are waiting for their rotation at the position. Another evening passes; it’s almost midnight. According to the plan, they were supposed to be relieved five days ago, but first, the Russians began systematically shelling the route with mortars. They burned a pickup truck belonging to a neighboring unit, and after that, a DJI Mavic drone hovered over the treeline for several nights in a row.

The basement of the ruined building smells of damp earth, diesel fuel, and stale smoke. There is water at the bottom of two canisters. One soldier, suffering from a concussion, has been sleeping in twenty-minute bursts for several nights now, startling awake at the slightest noise. Another walks around with his arm tightly wrapped in a dirty bandage and stubbornly waves it off: it’s nothing. In war, anything that hasn’t been torn off is considered nothing.

"The hardest thing here isn’t shooting," says the infantryman with the call sign Grek (call sign changed — Ed.). "The hardest thing is waiting for them to tell you: That’s it, we’re pulling out of the position".

In a peaceful context, rotation is simple: some come in, others go out. Like a shift at a factory: you work, you come back, you rest.

In 2026, this sounds almost like a joke.

Now, a rotation is a combat operation in its own right, often more complex than holding a combat position. The problem isn’t just how to get to the zero line. Perhaps the hardest part is getting out of it alive.

Just a few years ago, the main threats were artillery, mortars, and ambushes. Today, the front line is almost completely exposed. Reconnaissance drones, FPVs, strike drones, and forward observers constantly hover above it.

Any movement is visible: a vehicle on a dirt road, a group of people, a stretcher with a wounded soldier, a soldier carrying a box of batteries.

If the enemy spots people and calculates their route, they begin systematically targeting it: mortar, artillery, FPV, airstrike, then mortar again. Not a single strike, but a constant hunt for soldiers.

A difficult choice for the commander

That is precisely why a unit commander is often forced to choose between two bad options: leave the soldiers in their positions for a few more days, weeks, or months, where they will suffer health consequences, or try to pull them out, knowing that half the group could be killed on the way out. Very often, the first option turns out to be the lesser of two evils.

"People from the rear ask, 'Why aren’t you being relieved?'" the company commander says with a sad smile. "Because the road there and back is a war in itself".

He points to a narrow strip on the map between the treeline and the half-destroyed houses of the residential area:

"This is the worst part. The car can’t go any further. We have to walk. And this is exactly where they usually get caught".

After dismounting, the hardest part is only just beginning. Then the infantry still has to move another three, five, six, and often eight, ten, fifteen kilometers on foot.

It’s been like this for two years now. Anything that comes within a safe distance immediately ends up in the kill zone. Any vehicle attempting to transport people directly to the positions is guaranteed to be destroyed by drones.

That’s why the soldiers disembark far away, taking with them as much gear, water, and ammunition as they can carry. Large cargo is later delivered by heavy-lift bomber drones — the same Vampires and other large UAVs. Smaller drones will bring the fighters water, food, cigarettes, medicine, batteries, radio batteries, power banks — literally everything.

It’s impossible to survive there without a connection, so radio batteries are sometimes more valuable than many other things. Generators are rarely used — they can be heard for miles around. If there’s a Starlink or a charging point nearby, that’s a whole other complicated setup that also needs to be organized discreetly.

In the area covered by one of the units on the southern front, there are no fields or forest strips, just a residential area stretching along the Dnipro River, several streets wide, consisting entirely of buildings damaged by artillery and drones. Sometimes we have to walk 6–8 kilometers through these buildings simply because there is no other option.

Simply because there is no other option

This route is dangerous not only because of the drones. You often have to run across open areas, and in the woods and on the streets, everything is covered in leaves, under which you can’t see the Green Parrot mine. One careless step — and you’ll lose a foot.

That’s why every step requires constant concentration, constant vigilance, and a hope for good luck.

In everyday life, a person can cover that distance in an hour of casual walking. Your phone will even congratulate you: "You’ve hit your goal today — 7,000 to 10,000 steps".

On the front lines, those same few kilometers can turn into two or three grueling days: running, stopping, waiting, then running again. Sometimes the journey from a combat position takes three or four days, or even longer. You might cover most of the route, only to spend several more days sitting and waiting for the right moment to make the final stretch to the evacuation point.

Casualties here are completely random. One group of five people makes it out in full. The next one doesn’t: someone triggers a tripwire, a mine, or a drone that wounds someone. Sometimes it’s a minor injury, and the person is immediately evacuated to a hospital. Sometimes there’s no chance of evacuation, and the person dies literally just a few steps from the exit point.

And things often do go wrong

In well-organized military units, rotations are planned in great detail, just like a separate military operation. You need to find a brief window when the weather hinders enemy UAVs: rain, strong winds, or fog. Check the route, coordinate the delivery of water, ammunition, batteries, the evacuation of the wounded, EW cover, and a backup plan in case things go wrong.

And things often do go wrong.

That night, the opportunity finally presented itself. Around 1:00 a.m., it started raining, and a strong wind began to pick up. For the troops, this meant cold, mud, and a chance to get through. For small drones, it was a problem.

At 2:40 a.m., the replacement group set out.

An armored vehicle takes them to the point. The driver pushes it to top speed. Finally, it comes to a stop. The ramp is instantly lowered, the soldiers jump out, unload the cargo, and the vehicle speeds off again.

In the adjacent sector, another unit begins firing at the enemy to draw their attention there.

The advance to the combat position begins. Carefully, quickly, carefully, very quickly… Mud, rain, wet clothes. This time, it was possible to get all the way in one go. At the position, everything happens without a word: they relay sectors of observation, artillery targets, enemy ingress points, passages between mines, old craters that look alike at night but could be the last thing you see during the day.

There are no cool cinematic war scenes here. No one shakes hands to heroic music. People want to get away before that unfamiliar buzzing sound appears overhead again.

They’re carrying the wounded man. He’s silent the whole way, breathing heavily only when the stretcher hits a branch or someone trips over a root. They’re just over a kilometer from the car when the EW operator curses briefly: FPV.

You can’t see it in the dark, only hear it — at first far away, then closer, faster.

The first drone is jammed, and it explodes somewhere in the ruins. The second one enters the evacuation route, where it is also jammed and explodes somewhere far away. We have to wait for the vehicle at an alternate pickup point.

Formally, this is what is known as a "planned rotation".

Shortage of people

A shortage of soldiers is the reason for prolonged deployment on the front lines, and it is no less important than the constant presence of drones in the air. In a high-intensity war, infantry units are quickly depleted: casualties, injuries, concussions, and exhaustion.

You can’t manufacture an experienced infantryman in a factory. Experience is gained over the years. That’s why experienced soldiers must be cherished more dearly than their weight in gold.

If a battalion has fewer soldiers than needed even to hold the combat position normally, the commander makes up for the shortfall in only one way: by extending the time spent at the position.

THE MATH IS SIMPLE: IF THERE ARE FEWER PEOPLE, THEY STAY AT THEIR COMBAT POSITIONS LONGER

Leaving the combat position just like that is also not an option. Many of these strongpoints were taken at great cost: through assaults, under heavy fire, after several failed attempts.

If you withdraw even briefly, the enemy may get there first. This means losing observation, leaving a flank exposed to neighboring units, and having to retake the combat position with a new assault. An assault is almost always more costly than holding the position.

That’s why the solution often sounds harsh and simple: hold on until a realistic opportunity for a safe replacement arises.

What is war like today?

You might be standing in a half-ruined building, and just a hundred meters away, an enemy group is already creeping past you. If they enter your house, you have to kill them to survive. If they pass by and you spot them, you relay their coordinates, and then the drone operators take care of them.

Our infantrymen who came out of there all say the same thing: Ukrainian drone operators are doing a brilliant job. It’s often they who prevent the Russians from gaining a foothold, knocking them back while they’re still on the approach. But if the enemy is breaking down the door to your house, that’s a fight just a few meters away. There’s no room for heroics and no room for error.

At first, you don’t feel happy

At dawn, the treeline looks almost peaceful. Gray, wet, quiet. Somewhere in the distance, a mortar is firing again.

The soldiers who’ve come out of their position are smoking silently by the vehicle. Mud up to their knees, red eyes, so exhausted they’ve stopped noticing it.

"The strangest thing", says Grek, looking out at the wet field, "is that when you finally get out, at first you don’t feel happy. At first, you just can’t believe you got lucky this time".

AT FIRST, YOU CAN’T BELIEVE YOU GOT LUCKY THIS TIME

In contemporary warfare, the problem is often not how to get into a position. The problem is how to get out of it.

Order by Oleksandr Syrskyi

Following the scandal involving frontline troops whom the command had effectively forgotten, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, signed an order mandating the rotation of frontline personnel: "…within a period of no later than one month. The rotations of our soldiers must be planned, taking into account the situation, the nature of combat actions, and available forces and resources".

He did not forget to mention medical examinations and rest. The order also refers to strict oversight: "Compliance with the requirements of this order will be subject to strict oversight. Violations will result in inevitable consequences in accordance with applicable law and the statutes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This order is mandatory for all units".

Everything is harsh, grim, and fair. But war doesn’t follow orders. It adapts the rules to the reality on the ground. And it all comes down to three things: people, the sky, and kilometers.

Rotation, as we wrote above, is often not canceled — it is postponed. By a day, a week, sometimes a month. Because the cost of leaving may be higher than the cost of staying.

That is exactly how an anomaly becomes the norm. And until these three things change — people, the sky, and distance — this "norm" will remain.

eng frontline infantry rotation war

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