Slumped on an old couch, 28-year-old Anton shook a joystick. With great blows of an axe, this platoon leader of the 59^th Motorized Infantry Brigade brought down a virtual opponent to the cheers of his comrades. "Game over" appeared on the large TV set. It was around 11 am when Anton, whose nom de guerre is "Student," emerged from the abandoned house he was squatting in with a few comrades, a few kilometers from the front. He smoked a cigarette as he strode along the icy pavement. All the houses in the village where the 59^th Brigade had taken up residence bore the scars of war. Explosions regularly sounded in the vicinity.

Ten meters from the house, a vast crater reminded everyone that no life insurance was valid there. "The Russians spotted an ammunition dump and managed to hit it. That was a week ago," said Anton placidly, stroking a full red beard. He crossed the street to his personal "lair," an overheated cellar converted into an HQ, whose depth is equivalent to that of the nearby crater. He sat down in front of a computer screen and continued to smoke. The screen was divided into nine windows, displaying images of as many areas of the front line, filmed by reconnaissance drones. The platoon leader watched distractedly, as it wasn't the time for Russian assaults and nothing much was happening.

At daybreak, the mood was very different. "Every morning, the Russians attack our forward positions," explained Anton, who commanded 10 tanks (including his own) in his platoon. His mission was to block the southern jaw of the Russian pincers threatening to encircle the town of Avdiivka. "Usually, we destroy armor and infantry. This morning, there was no armor, but heavy artillery fire. On my screen, I saw 12 infantrymen advancing between piles of armored wreckage [destroyed in previous days]. We killed two infantrymen, others were wounded. The Russians retreated without evacuating any of their own."

In between two jokes about Russian cannon fodder and the erotic wallpaper unexpectedly appearing on the screen, the platoon leader complained about "a big ammunition problem, which is getting worse," and about his T-72 tanks "that are almost as old as [his] father." His platoon has recently been augmented by an enemy T-64, a Soviet tank from a generation even earlier than the T-72.

'We need helicopters'

His brigade commander, bursting into Anton's den to escape the cold, wouldn't contradict him. "We're short of everything," said 51-year-old Oleksandr (who is not allowed to reveal his surname). "To stand up to Russian pressure, we need helicopters, at least a squadron of [American] Apaches. We need ammunition, drones... since September, we've been getting nothing!" grumbled this grizzled, square-faced man.

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