[Source: BBC]

The tone is dark, even angry.

“The situation is getting worse every day.”

“We don’t see the goal. Our land is not here.”

Almost four months after Ukrainian troops launched a lightning offensive into the Russian region of Kursk, text messages from soldiers fighting there paint a dismal picture of a battle they don’t properly understand and fear they might be losing.

We’ve been in contact, via Telegram, with several soldiers serving in Kursk, one of whom has recently left. We’ve agreed not to identify any of them.

None of the names in this article are real.

They speak of dire weather conditions and a chronic lack of sleep caused by Russia’s constant bombardment, which includes the use of terrifying, 3,000kg glide bombs.

They’re also in retreat, with Russian forces gradually retaking territory.

“This trend will continue,” Pavlo wrote on 26 November. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Pavlo spoke of immense fatigue, the lack of rotation and the arrival of units, made up largely of middle-aged men, brought directly from other fronts with little or no time to rest in between.

To hear soldiers complain – about their commanding officers, orders and lack of equipment – is hardly unusual. It’s what soldiers often do in difficult circumstances.

Under immense pressure from the enemy and with winter setting in, it would be surprising to hear much optimism.

But the messages we’ve received are almost uniformly bleak, suggesting that motivation is a problem.

Some questioned whether one of the operation’s initial goals – to divert Russian soldiers from Ukraine’s eastern front – had worked.

The orders now, they said, were to hang onto this small sliver of Russian territory until a new US president, with new policies, arrives in the White House at the end of January.

“The main task facing us is to hold the maximum territory until Trump’s inauguration and the start of negotiations,” Pavlo said. “In order to exchange it for something later. No-one knows what.”