Even as he commanded troops in a fierce, week-long battle to capture a position in Russia, Col. Viktor Sikoza receives disturbing news: The Russians are using this time to build another fortress behind it.
“They are still building their defenses,” said Colonel Sikoza. “They keep it going” even as Ukraine moves forward, however slowly, with a high-stakes counter-offensive in the south of the country.
The troops of Colonel Sikoza, the commander of the 36th Marine Brigade, spearheaded the Ukrainian push and advanced about five miles into a bulge in the Russian lines in southern Ukraine.
Colonel Sikoza was only a commander, but his account matched Ukrainian reports about Russian positions. Over the past week, Colonel Sikoza has overseen an attack in a forest partially surrounded by swampy, low-lying land. Russian forces dug and mined the only ground around that was firm enough to support armored vehicles. The attack, he said, had to take place on foot.
The infantry filtered through the forest and fought in close quarters, he said. “We’re sailors — we’re aggressive,” he said. A company of Russian soldiers, about 80 men, dug trenches in the trees, he said. Colonel Sikoza described how a decisive turning point came when his troops captured two bunkers and a trench line at the edge of the forest, partially cutting off the Russians’ ability to resupply the group and forcing them to retreat.
His soldiers were highly motivated to take positions, and among them were Russian prisoners: In the first month of the war, the 36th Marine Brigade was surrounded in the city of Mariupol and more than 1,000 marines were taken by the Russians . “We want to exchange them for our men,” Colonel Sikoza said of the Russian captives.
Colonel Sikoza’s advance south was also a personal odyssey. He escaped from the Crimean Peninsula when Russia annexed it in 2014. If the counteroffensive is successful, it could put Ukrainian artillery in range to threaten the isthmus on the peninsula, cutting off Russian supply lines.
But it’s painfully slow. President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted the counteroffensive would not be as quick as some allies had hoped, and American officials said Ukraine was losing Western-provided armored vehicles to mines.
“For more than a year, the enemy has fortified it,” Colonel Sikoza said in an interview at a picnic table in the shade of a walnut tree in the yard of his command post near the front. Every minute or so, the booms of outgoing and incoming artillery rang out.
Regarding Ukrainian efforts to move forward, he admitted: “It’s not going to go as fast as we expected.”
Ahead of the Ukrainian bulge in this area, the Russians have completed the third line of defenses, said Colonel Sikoza. They put additional concrete barriers in the tank of a type Ukrainians call dragon’s teeth. And they deployed additional troops.
There was little he could do about it, he said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have enough precision weapons to hit targets at long range” behind Russia’s front lines. Additional defenses, he said, would further slow down Ukraine.
However, Colonel Sikoza’s troops scored some successes.
One soldier, who asked to be identified only by his rank and name for security reasons, Lt Yevhen, said he shot down a Russian attack helicopter with a Javelin anti-tank guided missile, a rare weapon that usually intended to hit. ground targets.
And although the brigade operates mostly Soviet-legacy artillery systems, it managed to hit a Russian barracks far behind the front line, Ukrainian officials said. A group of Russian soldiers posted a video on social media complaining of poor living conditions and what they said were unreasonable orders from commanders.
Lt. Denys Ryabynko, commanding a unit of Grad rocket artillery, was less interested in the complaint than in the distinctive brick building in the background. The Ukrainians spotted it in a village behind Russian lines and hit it with a barrage of rockets, he said.
Yurii Shyvala contributed reporting.
