JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In southern Ukraine, the riverside city of Kherson is a coveted prize for Russia. Russian troops shell neighborhoods daily and send drones buzzing over the streets. NPR's Brian Mann spent time with one team of Ukrainian soldiers working under cover of darkness to disrupt Russian attacks.
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BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: At dusk, an armored vehicle takes me along a rutted farm road near Kherson, a few miles from the bank of the Dnipro River. A Ukrainian soldier guided me here after NPR agreed not to reveal the exact location.
I'm Brian.
YURI: Yuri (ph).
MANN: Yuri? Good to see you.
VITALI: Vitali (ph).
MANN: Good to see you, Vitali.
In the early winter darkness, I meet a small unit of soldiers, middle-aged men mostly, in green wool caps and gloves and worn combat fatigues.
VITALI: (Non-English language spoken).
YURI: (Non-English language spoken).
MANN: They're pulling back the camouflage netting, and we're in a kind of half-trench here that's dug back into a forested hillside. And as they pull up the curtain, there's an enormous armored vehicle here hidden away.
GRIZZLY: (Non-English language spoken).
MANN: The unit's leader is a burly guy who goes by the military call sign Grizzly (ph). Keeping real names secret is common protocol for Ukrainian soldiers. NPR has agreed to use only their first names or nicknames for security reasons. Grizzly tells me by day they keep their weapons carefully hidden from enemy drones and artillery.
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MANN: Can I come up?
GRIZZLY: Yes.
MANN: I climb up onto the steel deck of what looks at first like a tank. In fact, it's part-armored troop carrier, part-mobile artillery.
GRIZZLY: (Non-English language spoken).
MANN: Grizzly tells me it's a Soviet-era weapons system modernized by Ukrainian engineers with a better gun - a kind of machine gun cannon - and better electronics for targeting and navigation in darkness. It performs really well, Grizzly says. It's fast and maneuverable.
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MANN: It's also deadly. Yuri, the team's gunner, digs through a box of shells, each one longer than my hand. They're chained together so they can be fed quickly into the cannon.
YURI: (Non-English language spoken).
MANN: "We work fast," Yuri tells me. "We arrive at the river, and we fire, emptying the gun in a minute, a minute-and-a-half at most. Then I tell the driver, let's get out of here." These kind of hit-and-run tactics are designed to harass the Russians and keep them off balance. But Ukrainian units like this one with the first battalion of the 40th Coastal Defense Brigade are dangerously outnumbered. They've been ordered to defend big sections of the Dnipro riverbank. I put the question to this battalion's commander, who goes by the call sign Khari (ph) - can you hold Kherson?
KHARI: (Non-English language spoken).
MANN: "Our job is to destroy the Russians and keep them from advancing and taking more of our territory. And we're getting that done," Khari says. I ask him about a report shared with NPR by a Ukrainian official that Russia may be building up troops and boats for a major amphibious attack near Kherson.
KHARI: (Non-English language spoken).
MANN: "We look forward to the Russians trying to attack us. It would give us a chance to destroy more of them," Khari says. It's bold talk, but Khari himself symbolizes how thin Ukraine's army is after years of fighting Russia.
Do you mind if I ask how old you are?
KHARI: (Non-English language spoken).
MANN: This battalion commander, charged with defending an entire sector of the Dnipro River, is just 24 years old.
You sound confident.
KHARI: (Non-English language spoken).
MANN: "I'm confident in my men, so I'm confident in myself," Khari tells me. It's full dark now. I can see the men's breath in their head lamps as they make final preparations...
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MANN: ...Battening the armored hatches and making ready to roll out.
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MANN: I ask the men with this coastal defense unit if they think they can hold the Dnipro River.
YURI: (Non-English language spoken).
MANN: "Yes, we can hold," Yuri tells me. I don't hear doubts from any of these soldiers about their mission - driving out in darkness night after night to face the Russians.
Do you feel nervous?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
MANN: "We've gotten used to it," one of the soldiers says.
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MANN: Another soldier says, "this is just what we do now. This is our job." Brian Mann, NPR News, near the frontlines in Kherson.
(SOUNDBITE OF NXWORRIES SONG, "WHERE I GO (FEAT. H.E.R.)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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