Ukraine’s front lines are unforgivingly brutal, and soldiers are often injured or killed just rotating in and out of their own trench systems, a Western commander leading a training program for Ukrainian soldiers told Business Insider.
“We hear that Ukrainian forces take quite a few casualties infiltrating and exfiltrating out of their own trench systems because the front has been static for a very long time,” said Brigadier Atle Molde, the commander of Task Force Legio, a Norway-led multinational effort to train Ukrainian soldiers on NATO soil.
Swarms of drones overhead gather intelligence and attack, making any movement a risk. Ukrainian commanders have described troop rotations as among the most vulnerable moments for front-line soldiers.
The drone-saturated area around the front lines is often described as a “kill zone.” A Ukrainian official previously told Business Insider that just getting to front-line positions can take days and that it is the most dangerous part of the mission in many cases.
Troop rotation, resupply, and relocation also present tremendous risks.
That danger is why the Western training program puts particular emphasis on moving in and out of trench systems. At Camp Jomsborg, a purpose-built training site in eastern Poland, “it’s all about saving lives,” Molde said.
Jørgen, a Norwegian Army instructor for the operation’s platoon leader course who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used, told Business Insider that the training includes using supporting fire to suppress the enemy so that friendly forces can move into trenches.
He said that many of the Ukrainians who come through already have an “incredibly high” level of combat experience and have developed effective methods of their own. The input he has received from Ukrainian trainees “worked when I actually tried to do it,” he shared, and resulted in “less risk to our guys.”
Death and danger around defensive fighting positions
Trenches have long been surrounded by death and difficulty in this war. Worsening threats, particularly the drone threat, however, have at times made this situation significantly more dangerous.
Soldiers can get stuck inside trenches, dugouts, and other defensive positions for long periods.
Some troops have described having to spend months in a single position because drones and artillery made it too dangerous to move out safely. They had to wait for weather, friendly fire support, or a lucky break to move without immediately being detected and attacked.
A US veteran who fought for Ukraine previously told Business Insider that life in a trench was often just waiting as “artillery shells just dropping on you for hours on end,” they said.
The danger can make seemingly basic tasks difficult. The veteran said troops couldn’t even properly remove enemy dead, while another American vet who fought for Ukraine said that soldiers sometimes struggled to deepen or fortify their trenches because they didn’t want to “stick their heads out.”
“That’s when they get hit.”
“When guys have tried to move,” the veteran said, “they step out and immediately just start getting pounded, and then they’re having to play dead, hoping that eventually they’ll catch a quick break to get up and start running.”
Even staying put can offer little security. They described being “literally just hunkered down” and hoping nothing collapsed the position or landed inside the trench. “You’re static in one spot, and there’s not much you can do about it.”
When troops can’t safely rotate in and out, soldiers can end up stranded at the front for long periods.
Soldiers from Ukraine’s 121st Territorial Brigade said in August that they had gone four months without a rotation and were running short of food and water, the Kyiv Independent reported at the time.
Command said that they would be pulled out when the security situation allowed. Heavy drone surveillance had made movement to and from forward positions difficult.
Lessons in trench warfare
At Camp Jomsborg, Ukrainian combat experience, including its deep knowledge of trench warfare, is being combined with Western best practices and incorporated into how troops train to move through and fight from trenches.
Jørgen said the trench infiltration and exfiltration tactics the Ukrainians had shown him were better than any single lesson he had to offer. “Keeping it to the principles and trying to let the guys put their own experience into it,” he said, “I think that’s much more valuable than my experience.”
The trench warfare in Ukraine is unlike anything Western militaries have seen in a long time. Positions are watched by drones, the battlefield kill chains are faster, allowing movement to be detected and engaged in minutes, and even routine supply runs and rotations can become deadly combat operations.
The West is paying attention and, through work with the Ukrainians, reassessing its training and assumptions about this kind of warfighting.
At Camp Jomsborg, leaders are trying to get the trenches to resemble those that Ukrainian troops actually encounter. The training trenches are “constructed by the Ukrainians, or they have told us how to construct it” to resemble the real ones as much as possible, Molde said.
He said the trench network has been “changed a couple of times already, and we’ve only been active for less than a year,” highlighting the challenge of keeping up with a fast-evolving battlefield.
Though less of a focus for many Western militaries, trench operations are a critical and deadly part of regular operations, so it’s a priority at Jomsborg. He said the goal is for as many Ukrainians to “survive this fight for as long as possible.”
The hope, he added, is that “we reach a situation where Ukraine can negotiate a truce or a ceasefire on good terms. That’s what it’s all about.”
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