Noticed we are hearing less about the war in Ukraine? That’s because Ukraine’s forces are getting hammered. So much so that the foreign fighters who joined up with much fanfare last year are now desperately trying to get out...

*****************************************

If Ukraine’s counteroffensive has moved more slowly than many in the West had hoped, it has also proven more costly in terms of human lives.

The fighting has been brutal – and bloody – as the Russians use mass artillery and minefields to defend territory seized earlier in the war.

An information blackout has been imposed by the Ukrainians to protect operational tactics, but post-battle accounts by individual combatants reveal the perilous nature of the fighting at the front.

The toll, both physically and emotionally, has been considerable.

Sky News has interviewed two foreign volunteers who have been fighting in the Ukrainian army for the past 17 months. Their accounts have been supported by additional testimony provided by several other foreign volunteers.

Rhys Byrne, codename ‘Rambo’, is a spirited 28-year-old from Dublin. He has fought for a number of units in Ukraine, including the 59th brigade in the Ukrainian territorial army where he operated a heavy machine gun.

He says the battle to reclaim territory has been horrific. “On ‘zero line’ it’s horror. It’s horror. There is just a genocide. It’s slaughter.

“There are dead people everywhere. Russians dead. Ukrainian people dead…. the biggest problem we get when we’re going into trenches is stepping over all the dead bodies that are already there from the last people [who] went in – that kind of stuff really haunts you.”

We met him at a respite centre in eastern Ukraine, a sanctuary used by army volunteers who have been granted leave from the front.

Mirrored - Sky News