Russia’s bloody summer offensive is hurting Ukraine

Artem recalls seeing “perhaps two hundred abandoned [kit] bags” with surnames in one forward bunker. Getting to positions is only half the story. Once in the crusty burrows that make up the front line, you have to deal with what some soldiers call “vinegret”, a beetroot salad; or the putrid mix of metal, rubbish, branches, blood and human remains. “It’s impossible to hold positions as so many have fallen, and no one recovers the bodies.”