RFE/RL joins Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade on a dangerous route to Druzhkivka where Russian drones target vehicles and troops. Only a few thousand civilians remain inside the battered frontline city as Russian bombs devastate homes and Ukrainian forces hold the line.

The Kremlin has heavily invested in the promise that retreating Arctic sea ice opens up a once impassable route that is further from the reach of Ukrainian drone attacks or European naval interdiction of shadow fleet vessels. But officials are learning that cutting a path through ice isn't easy.