 Francis Farrell holds a “Chuyka” drone video signal detector in Kherson, Ukraine, on Nov. 20, 2025. (Sasha Maslov / The Kyiv Independent) Why is it important to report from the front lines? Reporting from the front lines is important because you can't understand this war simply by aggregating open-source information on Telegram or reading news content written by journalists who don't leave Kyiv. The battlefield shifts back and forth constantly, and every few months, new innovations completely change how the fighting is done. To bridge the increasingly wide understanding gap between the zero line (the very front of the front line) and Ukraine's partners, people like us need to go and see the war for ourselves, and then commit to communicating it as accurately as possible. How long are you usually staying there? What do you do about food and accommodation? Our trips to the front line usually last one or two weeks. We are usually based outside the range of the drones used at the front lines, but we do sometimes join units of soldiers for one or two days in the “kill zone.” We aim to be self-sufficient when we join the soldiers, but they can usually share food and water without much trouble. Are you armed? As a journalist, international norms dictate that I should not be armed, but when every human, whether soldier or civilian, is being hunted from the air, miles and miles from the nearest Russian soldier, those rules should be revisited. It's a big step to take that would ruffle a lot of feathers in our world, so I wouldn't take it lightly. We have not taken that step, as of now at least, and before one even thinks about it, proper weapons training will have to come first. How is morale? Morale depends heavily on the trust soldiers have in their commanders. There are some people, the infantry, whose jobs entail spending months at a time in one hole, and of course, that is hard on a level you or I could imagine. Everything else is more manageable in comparison. The only alternative to fighting is annihilation, and that keeps people inspired to fight. How are the troops doing? Are there enough? There has been a lot of discussion about the shortage of soldiers for the Ukrainian army, and the crisis is not going away. However, simply conscripting more men is not the answer. Kyiv needs to create better conditions for mobilized troops, use them more effectively, and fix the systemic problems that lead to excess losses. I wrote more about this situation here. On quality, more and more brigades are being allowed to do their own basic training for soldiers, which is largely an improvement. But the troops' physical condition and motivation remain stagnant or in decline.  Francis Farrell in a basement of an abandoned building that serves as shelter for soldiers and journalists during their rotations in Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on June 28, 2025. (Olena Zashko / The Kyiv Independent) Fewer and fewer international outlets send reporters to the front. Many now cover this war from safe offices thousands of kilometers away. But we're still going — despite the ever-increasing saturation of Russian drones in the sky above front-line areas and the associated risks to journalists. Because that's where the truth of this war lives. Our front-line reports reach millions of people each month — and we're able to make all of this possible thanks to the paying members who support our work. If you understand what's at stake in this war and want Ukraine's story to continue to be told — by those who are here, and who see it firsthand — you can make that happen. | 
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