Francis Farrell is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent, on the frontlines. He offers insight into what it’s like to be on the ground with Ukrainian troops.
Front Line Ukraine
Farrell shared the following in a recent email update. The Kyiv Independent is one of the few International newspapers with accurate reporting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At a time when large Western media outlets have almost completely stopped traveling to the front lines, reporters like Francis continue to do so, bearing witness to the battlefield from the ground when no one else will. 
Why is it important to report from the front lines?
Reporting from the front lines is important because you can’t understand this war simply by aggregating open-source information on Telegram or reading news content written by journalists who don’t leave Kyiv. The battlefield shifts back and forth constantly, and every few months, new innovations completely change how the fighting is done. To bridge the increasingly wide understanding gap between the zero line (the very front of the front line) and Ukraine’s partners, people like us need to go and see the war for ourselves and then commit to communicating it as accurately as possible.
How long are you usually staying there? What do you do about food and accommodation?
Our trips to the front line usually last one or two weeks. We are usually based outside the range of the drones used at the front lines, but we do sometimes join units of soldiers for one or two days in the “kill zone.” We aim to be self-sufficient when we join the soldiers, but they can usually share food and water without much trouble.
How is morale?
Morale depends heavily on the trust soldiers have in their commanders. There are some people, the infantry, whose jobs entail spending months at a time in one hole, and of course, that is hard on a level you or I could imagine. Everything else is more manageable in comparison. The only alternative to fighting is annihilation, and that keeps people inspired to fight. 
How are the troops doing? Are there enough?
There has been a lot of discussion about the shortage of soldiers for the Ukrainian army, and the crisis is not going away. However, simply conscripting more men is not the answer. Kyiv needs to create better conditions for mobilized troops, use them more effectively, and fix the systemic problems that lead to excess losses. I wrote more about this situation here.
On quality, more and more brigades are being allowed to do their own basic training for soldiers, which is largely an improvement. But the troops’ physical condition and motivation remain stagnant or in decline.
You can read more about Ukraine everyday and support the writing of Francis and others at the Kyiv Independent for $7CAN/month.
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