Wounded Ukrainian soldiers are being evacuated from muddy trenches under fire from Russian troops 200 meters away in extreme conditions near Bakhmut, where the bloodiest battle of the war started 13 months ago by Moscow is taking place, AFP reports. On the soft ground after the end of winter, Ukrainian soldiers trying to hold back the Russians in the Bakhmut area say that the time for a counteroffensive has not yet come. “Any heavy weapon that ventures here will jam and become a target. There can be no counterattack yet,” the soldier said.

“If one of us is in trouble, he has to be carried a kilometer or three to the nearest place where he can be cared for,” explains a Ukrainian military man on this part of the front, located a few kilometers from the village. Bakhmut, in the east of Ukraine.

“In these conditions, even a minor wound can be fatal,” he adds, as artillery fire echoes nearby.

Such difficulties are just one example of the problems that the Ukrainian military must overcome as it prepares for the counteroffensive it has promised for weeks against Russian forces.

First of all, it is necessary to accumulate ammunition, recruit new paratroopers and train them to use weapons and armored vehicles supplied by the West.

Observers of this war believe that Ukraine may strike back in the coming weeks.

But in these regions of soft land at the end of winter, the military, who are trying to restrain the Russians, say: not yet.

“Any heavy weapon that ventures here will jam and become a target. There can be no counterattack yet,” the soldier said.

AFP journalists who were on their way to the front line in the Bakhmut area saw Ukrainian military freeing a stuck car.

The Ukrainian commander says that the Russians are preparing for a counteroffensive by Kyiv

But, observing the pictures of the area sent by drones, Yevhen, the commander of the Ukrainian battalion, believes that the assault is inevitable.

“It will come, that’s obvious. The situation at the front demands it. But a counteroffensive can only be launched when the enemy’s forces are exhausted,” the 42-year-old officer told AFP.

“We have to lock them down so they can’t regroup,” he said, explaining that Russian forces are sending waves of untrained recruits into their attacking positions before deploying more experienced fighters there.

On the basis of radio intercepts and drone recordings, he believes that Russian troops, keeping forces there to fully control Bakhmut, are actually preparing for a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

“The enemy has started to mine their positions, which means that they are at the end of the road. They are preparing for defense,” he said.

Evgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Wagner’s mercenary group, which is on the front lines in Bakhmut, said nothing more this week.

“The ideal solution would be to declare the end of the conflict and tell everyone that Russia has achieved its goals – as have we,” he said in a message on social media.

For civilians who refused to flee and have already endured more than a year of fighting, the prospect of a counteroffensive changes little.

A few kilometers from Bakhmut, in the village of Kalynivka, 71-year-old Vira Petrova shows her partially destroyed house. “If my house is destroyed, I will live in the basement,” she says, not reacting to the explosions.

There are about ten residents left on this street, lined with cherry trees and abandoned houses.