In The Trenches with the Da Vinci Wolves

From Daily Kos:

The Honor Squad from Ukraine’s DaVinci Wolves battalion has filmed 11 minutes’ worth of a first-person experience in the trenches outside of Bakhmut. In this video, the members are trying to clear trenches and protect the area east of Khromove along what has been called alternately the “Road of Life” and the “Road of Death.” It’s the only paved road that can bring men and materiel in and out of the area of Bakhmut still in Ukrainian hands. However, it’s also under fire control from Russian forces to the north, making every run down the road a contest against a rain of artillery shells while dodging the burned-out hulks of vehicles that failed. 

Take a deep breath before watching this, because it’s intense. And here’s a big and serious warning: There is some very close-range exchange of fire in this video. People get shot. People get killed. Those people are sometimes up close and in daylight, not distant shapes on a thermal screen. Combat takes place at a shockingly short range. All of it is set on a nightmare landscape where not a leaf on a tree or a blade of grass has survived.