Russias

Kyiv, Ukraine – Hennady Kolesnik never expected the full-scale Russian invasion to last this long.

“These are the worst and longest years of my life,” the 71-year-old retired welder told Al Jazeera four years after the aggression that began on February 24, 2022.

In the first days of the war, he and many Ukrainians were afraid Kyiv would be lost, as well as the third of their France-sized nation that lies on the left, eastern bank of the Dnipro River.

Tens of thousands of Russian troops, including elite airborne units and motor rifle brigades, occupied north of the Kyiv region, while the Kremlin’s supporters triumphantly touted that the capital would be seized “within three days”.

Months later, “we were ecstatic about what we’d regained” after Russian forces withdrew from around Kyiv and were ousted from northern Ukraine, said Kolesnik, a grey-haired, pallid-faced and emaciated pensioner, clutching a cane.

He is recovering from a case of pneumonia that he feared he would not survive amid days-long power outages and disruptions of central heating caused by Russian drones and missiles during a cold spell, when temperatures plunged to as low as -23 degrees Celsius (-9.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

“But we’re still standing, and that’s the most important thing in a fight,” Kolesnik, who used to dabble in boxing, said with a smile.

His wife, Marina, 70, agreed: “Nobody expected us to last that long, and we’re still here.”

However, Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive failed to cut Moscow’s “land bridge” from western Russia to annexed Crimea, and Russian troops keep inching forward.

But their advance is glacial amid staggering losses. Last year, they occupied less than 5,000 square kilometres (1,930 sq miles), or about 0.8 percent of Ukraine’s total area, according to Ukrainian officials and Western analysts.

Overall, Russia controls about 19 percent of Ukraine’s territory.

“The front line froze like during World War I,” Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University told Al Jazeera. “So far, Russia doesn’t have enough forces or new technologies for a decisive and successful advance, but it can still squander thousands of [its soldiers’] lives.”

This month, Russian forces encountered a dual communication problem that reversed their progress.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX company shut down smuggled Starlink satellite internet terminals used by Russian soldiers, while Moscow’s efforts to block the Telegram messaging app further disrupted coordination.

Ukrainian forces counterattacked, regaining about 200 sq km (77 sq miles) in the eastern Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

But in other front-line areas, the pressure is mounting.

Russian drones with attached optic fibre immune to jamming began reaching a heavily-fortified town in the southeastern Donetsk region.

“It has gotten a lot noisier. There are more outages; some locals are panicking,” Sviatoslav, a serviceman stationed in Kramatorsk, told Al Jazeera. He withheld his last name in accordance with wartime protocol.

Moscow insists Kyiv surrender Kramatorsk and the rest of Donetsk – about 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles).

What could affect Ukraine’s stance is further Russian strikes on energy infrastructure.

“Ukraine keeps the front line well, but the functionality of its energy system is hanging by a thread, which may affect a lot,” Mitrokhin said.

Eighty-eight percent of Ukrainians think Russia’s strikes are designed to “force them to capitulate”, according to a survey by the Kyiv International Sociology Institute (KMIS) conducted in late January.

Nevertheless, two-thirds of those polled said Ukraine’s armed forces should fight for “as long as it takes”.

“People en masse are more ready to keep resisting [the invasion] than to capitulate,” Svetlana Chunikhina, vice president of the Association of Political Psychologists, a Kyiv-based group, told Al Jazeera.

And even though there is a spike in depression, anxiety, and chronic stress among Ukrainians, there are no “abrupt jumps” in these conditions, she said.

“People adapt – including through depression – to the war’s horrible circumstances; people keep functioning,” she said.

Ukrainians still hope for a better future, she said.

Only one in five polled Ukrainians hopes the war will end this year, but two in three are sure that in 10 years, Ukraine will be a “thriving” member of the European Union.

“This is the literal realisation of the philosophic principle: ‘get ready for the worst, hope for the best,’” Chunikhina said.

However, brain fog and cynicism are on the rise, she said.

“For the Ukrainian public whose fight against the Russian aggression is largely fuelled by moral virtues – including high ones, such as altruism, patriotism, responsibility to future generations – cynicism could be really destructive,” she said.

News brings little relief.

United States President Donald Trump has so far failed to deliver on his pre-election pledge to end the war “in 24 hours”.

Meanwhile, Russian public figures who support the Kremlin still try to present the invasion as a step to “protect” Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

Moscow-based analyst Sergey Markov claims that the war began on February 23, 2014, when pro-Russian protesters began rallying in Crimea, urging the Kremlin to annex the Ukrainian peninsula.

“It was a peaceful uprising of the Russian people for freedom, peace and true democracy,” he wrote on Telegram on Monday.

As well as being a key component of Russia’s attack helicopter force in the war in Ukraine, the Mi-28 Havoc has been in the news recently on account of its apparent delivery to Iran. Meanwhile, one lesser-known aspect of the Mi-28 is its ability to transport two or three passengers in a cramped fuselage compartment, a feature that is seen clearly in a recently published video of the rotorcraft.

The footage in question originates with the state-owned Russia Television and Radio channel and shows a Russian Aerospace Forces Mi-28NM — the latest domestic version of the gunship — undergoing pre-flight checks at a forward airstrip somewhere in the Ukrainian conflict zone. The video reportedly dates from this month.

At the start of the video, a technician is seen handling hoses that run into the helicopter’s port-side rear fuselage via an open door. Typically, such hoses are attached to dehumidifier units, which then blow warm, dry air through the aircraft to keep everything dry. This is especially important for sensitive avionics in cold weather, as on this snowy airfield. Once the helicopter is fully powered up, it should keep itself warm enough for moisture not to be a problem.

What’s most interesting, however, is that the open door provides a rare look into this rear-fuselage compartment, which has the capacity to carry two or three people, or an equivalent load of cargo. Of course, this is in addition to the Mi-28’s two crew seated in tandem in the cockpit — the weapon system operator/navigator forward and the pilot to the rear.

The fuselage compartment, unique among in-service attack helicopters, was part of the Mi-28’s design when it was first schemed back in the second half of the 1970s. The Soviet Union had ordered Mil to design a new-generation combat helicopter, equivalent to the U.S. AH-64 Apache, but this feature was all its own.

The Mi-28’s configuration was broadly similar to the AH-64, but marked a significant move away from the philosophy enshrined in the previous Mi-24 Hind. As we have discussed in the past, the Mi-24 had been built around a passenger/cargo cabin — with space for a squad of infantry — although, as it was developed, it expanded its anti-armor capabilities, too.

A walkaround video of a privately owned Mi-24 in the United States. The passenger/cargo cabin is seen in detail from around the 11:30 mark:

Hind MI-24 Helicopter Walkaround Tour

In contrast, the Mi-28 was a tank-killer first and foremost, with no cabin, and better overall performance. However, there was internal space for a much smaller compartment and one that would be very useful for retrieving downed pilots from the battle area, especially for grabbing a pilot who went down within the same flight. Bearing in mind the expected aircraft losses on Europe’s Central Front — especially among low-flying helicopters — this made a lot of sense.

Other tasks could have included moving mechanics and tools to conduct limited repairs of other helicopters in an emergency. Potentially, it could even have been used for inserting and picking up infiltrators or saboteurs.

Having the option of using the Mi-28 as a kind of ad-hoc, or non-traditional combat search and rescue (CSAR) asset would also mean that the aircraft could operate on its own and on the fly if other air or ground assets were not available. Traditionally, CSAR helicopters have to operate with an armed escort. It’s unknown whether the passenger cabin has been used at all in the war in Ukraine, but the limited space, presence of avionics equipment, and complete lack of windows mean it’s only really suited to emergencies. For more typical CSAR missions in the Ukrainian theater, Mi-8 Hips and Mi-24s are typically used, with an escort of Mi-28 or Ka-52 Hokum attack helicopters.

As for other attack helicopter types attempting personnel recovery, the best-known incident is likely that involving two British Army Apache gunships in Afghanistan in January 2007. During that dramatic mission, four Royal Marines strapped themselves to the outside of two Apaches for an attempted combat rescue. Ultimately, they were only able to recover the body of their fallen comrade, Lance Cpl. Ford, who had already been killed.

The Italian Army, too, has explored the concept of using its A129 Mangusta attack helicopters for personnel rescue, strapping a pair of soldiers to the main landing gear struts. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command operates MH-6M Little Birds with side-mounted planks to externally airlift special operators. A more elaborate modular system, used to transport small numbers of personnel, was schemed for the Bell 360 Invictus armed scout helicopter, as you can read about here.

It’s also worth pointing out another planned ‘survival’ feature of the Mi-28, namely its crew-escape system. Unlike the Ka-52, the Mi-28 doesn’t have ejection seats. Instead, the Zvezda/Tomilino Pamir-K crew seats have belts that tighten automatically when high-g loads are encountered. As originally envisaged, the crew escape system would work as follows: During any kind of catastrophic failure at altitude, the cockpit doors would be blown off, the stub wings would be jettisoned together with their loads, and an inflatable door-sill sleeve would be filled with air. This was to protect the crew from the protruding main landing gear and cannon and help them clear the helicopter, after which they would return to the ground by parachute. In theory, at least.

Ka-52 alligator and its unique K-37-800M ejection seats. Before the rocket in the ejection seat deploys, the rotor blades are blown away by explosive charges in the rotor disc and the canopy is jettisoned. pic.twitter.com/BzPP9SNXMZ

— Владимир З. (@VladZinen) December 11, 2020

In practice, it seems the crew escape system never reached operational status on the Mi-28, likely due to the very limited window in which it would be of practical use.

According to the Oryx open-source tracking group, Russia has lost 19 Mi-28s since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago. This figure could be higher because Oryx only tabulates losses it can confirm visually. Russia began the conflict with a force of around 110 Mi-28s of all versions.

⚡️Video of the destruction of the Mi-28 of the 🇷🇺Russian Air Force using an 🇺🇦FPV drone. The first recorded case pic.twitter.com/LWosDeX2Ah

— 🪖MilitaryNewsUA🇺🇦 (@front_ukrainian) August 7, 2024

The Mi-28 has had a notably protracted history since it was first flown in prototype form in 1982. The original Havoc was abandoned by the early 1990s, and Mil pressed ahead with the radar-equipped, night-capable Mi-28N version. Deliveries of production Mi-28N helicopters to Russia began in 2008, and export versions have since been sold to Algeria, Iraq, Uganda, and, apparently, now also Iran.

For Russia, the basic version remains the Mi-28N, which also undertook combat operations in Syria starting in 2016.

Less common is the Mi-28UB (only 24 of which were produced), which received a mast-mounted radar, lacking on the Mi-28N, and dual controls. As for the latest Mi-28NM version — as seen in the video above — this also has the mast-mounted radar and other changes, including new missiles. As well as having been ordered in quantity for Russia, there are also plans to bring older Mi-28N aircraft up to Mi-28NM standard.

Video of the radar-equipped Mi-28UB during a live-fire exercise in the Krasnodar region, March 2020:

Russian Mi-28UB live fire exercise

For all the changes that the Mi-28 has undergone since it first appeared, its highly compact passenger compartment remains one of its most unusual features.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Five European countries say findings ‘conclusively’ confirm the deadly toxin in the Russian opposition leader’s body as Moscow calls it Western propaganda.

Five European countries – the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands – have accused Russia of poisoning and killing opposition leader Alexey Navalny in 2024 based on lab results from a sample taken from his body.

The five governments said in a statement on Saturday that tissue samples “conclusively” confirmed the lethal toxin epibatidine. The poison is found in wild dart frogs from South America.

“The UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands are confident that Alexey Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin,” the statement issued during the Munich Security Conference said.

Russia had “the means, motive, and opportunity to administer this poison”, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office added in a statement.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told state-run RIA Novosti news agency she’ll comment once the test results are publicly presented – something she noted has not yet been done.

The five countries said they’re reporting Russia to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention. There was no immediate comment from the organisation.

Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged anti-Kremlin protests as President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died in an Arctic penal colony on February 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence he called politically motivated.

Epibatidine is found naturally in dart frogs and can also be manufactured in a lab, something European scientists suspect was the case in the alleged poisoning of Navalny.

The poison works by causing shortness of breath, convulsions, seizures and a slowed heart rate and can kill on contact.

The five countries said Russia needs to be held accountable for its “repeated violations” of the convention.

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper met Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, at the Munich Security Conference. She said the new findings are “shining a light on the Kremlin’s barbaric plot to silence his voice”.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot wrote on X the alleged poisoning shows “Vladimir Putin is prepared to use biological weapons against his own people in order to remain in power.”

The Russian government has repeatedly denied any involvement in Navalny’s death. Authorities said he became ill after a walk and died from natural causes.

“Once there are test results – once there are formulas for the substances – there will be a comment. Without this, all talk and statements are just information leaks aimed at distracting attention from the West’s pressing problems,” said Zakharova.

‘Science-proven fact’?

It’s unclear how the samples from Navalny’s body were obtained or where they were assessed. Cooper told reporters “UK scientists worked with our European partners to pursue the truth” on Navalny’s death.

Navalnaya said the “murder” of her husband is now a “science-proven fact”.

“Two years ago, I came on stage here and said that it was Vladimir Putin who killed my husband,” Navalnaya said on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

“I was, of course, certain that it was a murder, … but back then, it was just words. But today these words have become science-proven fact,” Navalnaya added.

Navalny was the previous target of a nerve agent poisoning in 2020 that he blamed on the Kremlin.

He was flown to Germany for treatment, and when he returned to Russia five months later, he was immediately arrested and imprisoned for the remaining three years of his life.

The UK held a ‌public inquiry into the poisoning in Britain of Russian double agent Sergey Skripal in 2018. It concluded last year that Putin must have ordered the Novichok nerve agent attack. The Kremlin has denied involvement.

Russia also denied poisoning Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian agent-turned-Kremlin critic who died in London in 2006 after ingesting the radioactive isotope polonium-210. A British inquiry concluded that two Russian agents killed Litvinenko.

Kyiv, Ukraine – A heavy Russian Geran drone struck a fast-moving train in northern Ukraine on January 27, killing five, wounding two and starting a fire that disfigured the railway carriage.

Such an attack was impossible back in 2022, when Russia started dispatching roaring swarms of Shaheds, the Geran-2’s Iranian prototypes.

Ukrainian servicemen ridiculed them for their slow speed and low effectiveness – and shot them down with their assault rifles and machineguns.

But the Geran kamikaze drones have undergone countless modifications, becoming faster and deadlier – and some were equipped with Starlink satellite internet terminals.

The terminals made them immune to Ukrainian jamming and even allowed their Russian operators to navigate their movement in real time.

Western sanctions prohibit the import of the notebook-sized terminals operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company to Russia.

But Moscow has allegedly smuggled thousands of them via ex-Soviet republics and the Middle East, notably Dubai, using falsified documents and activation in nations where the use of Starlink is legal, according to Russian war correspondents and media reports.

Russian forces were able to counter the use of Starlink by Ukrainian forces as the terminals linked to SpaceX’s satellite armada orbiting the Earth allowed faster communication and data exchange, as well as greater precision.

In early February, SpaceX blocked the use of every Starlink geolocated on Ukrainian territory, including the ones used by Ukrainian forces.

Only after a verification and inclusion into “white lists” that are updated every 24 hours can they be back online.

But any terminal will be shut down if moving faster than 90km/h (56mph) to prevent drone attacks.

“Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorized use of Starlink by Russia have worked,” Musk wrote on X on February 1.

The step is ascribed to Ukraine’s new defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, a 35-year-old who had served as the minister of digital transformation. He introduced dozens of innovations that simplified bureaucracy and business, according to a four-star general.

“Fedorov managed to sort it out with Musk – somehow, because we couldn’t do it earlier,” Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, a former deputy head of Ukrainian armed forces, told Al Jazeera.

He said the shut-off “significantly lowered” the effectiveness of Russia’s drone attacks and disrupted the communication of small groups of Russian soldiers trying to infiltrate Ukrainian positions.

The effect was so devastating that it made Russian forces “howl” with despair, said Andriy Pronin, one of the pioneers of military drone use in Ukraine.

“They’re like blind kittens now,” he told Al Jazeera.

Russian servicemen in places like the contested eastern town of Kupiansk are now “deprived of any way of getting in touch with mainland”, one of them complained on Telegram on February 4.

Other servicemen and war correspondents decried the shortsightedness of Russian generals who built communications around Starlink and did not create an alternative based on Russian technologies and devices.

However, the shutdown affected Ukrainian users of Starlink that were not supplied to the Defence Ministry but were procured by civilians and charities.

“The communications were down for two days until we figured out the white list procedure,” Kyrylo, a serviceman in the northern Kharkiv region, told Al Jazeera. He withheld his last name in accordance with the wartime protocol.

The effect, however, is short-term and is unlikely to turn the tables in the conflict that is about to enter another year.

“It’s not a panacea, it’s not like we’re winning the war,” Pronin said. “It will be hard [for Russians], but they will restore their communications.”

According to Romanenko, “it’ll take them several weeks to switch to older” communication devices such as radio, wi-fi, fibre optic or mobile phone internet.

Russia is exploiting Ukraine’s coldest winter yet since it escalated the war four years ago. As negotiations between Ukraine, Russia and the United States continue to stall, will this winter freeze become Ukraine’s breaking point?

In this episode: 

• Oleksiy Sorokin (@mrsorokaa) Deputy Chief Editor, Kyiv Independent

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Chloe K. Li, Marcos Bartolomé, and Melanie Marich, with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Maya Hamadeh, Tuleen Barakat, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Tamara Khandaker. 

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhemm. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio. 

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