Free Republic

Government forces in Ukraine are trying to seize the initiative from Russian troops before the arrival of winter. A counter-offensive is already under way in the south and the Ukrainians are now preparing to expand that in the east to take back land lost in Donbas and around Kharkiv in the north. Quentin Sommerville and camera-journalist Darren Conway have been given exclusive access to a unit of Ukrainian troops. The air is thick with the smell of burning sunflowers, and the pat-pat-pat of Russian cluster bombs can be heard landing across the fields, setting fire to a crop which stands,...