343 days on the front line: Ukrainian officer’s long deployment underscores Kyiv’s manpower issues

By Daria Tarasova-Markina, Lauren Kent, CNN

(CNN) — Infantry officer Oleksiy just spent 343 days without leaving the front line, in what his battalion believes is one of the longest combat deployments for an officer in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

His lengthy deployment, in the woodlands between settlements in the eastern Zaporizhzhia region, underscores Ukraine’s severe lack of manpower as the war drags on after more than four years.

The 37-year-old had the opportunity to leave the front at one point but volunteered to stay due to the manpower challenges.

“My company is understaffed (as are all the others) and of those who are here, roughly half are in the 50-plus age bracket,” said Oleksiy – whose call sign is “Botanik,” a.k.a. “nerd” – in a statement published by his unit. “Ideally, an infantryman would spend a month on combat duty and a month recovering in a frontline village. But under current conditions, that’s completely unrealistic due to the shortage of men.”

His battalion, which identified Oleksiy only by his first name, told CNN that a typical deployment is about three to four months for their unit. Throughout the military, soldiers typically serve on the front lines in rotations of less than three months, although it varies widely.

“Infantry serve the longest, and the farther from the front line, the shorter the combat deployment,” Major Yaroslav Halas, an officer with the 3rd Mountain Assault Battalion of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, told CNN. “For example, reconnaissance UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) pilots may be in combat positions for 3 to 4 days, while FPV drone pilots stay for a week (as they are closer to the front line).”

The lengthening deployments come as Ukrainian commanders in other units have warned of personnel issues, acknowledging that the army will never match the manpower of Russia’s far larger military force.

CNN has previously reported on Ukraine’s increased use of land robots and drones controlled by pilots positioned miles away from the front line, as the country tries to use technological advances to gain an advantage. Ukraine has also stepped up its efforts to draft more men without a valid exemption from serving.

Other examples of Ukrainian men serving long stints have been reported by local media in recent months. Senior Lieutenant Ivan Kavun, the commander of a machine-gun platoon in the 30th Mechanized Brigade, spent 486 days in a frontline deployment, according to his unit.

“Supplies were dropped to us by drones. If a vehicle came in, it would bring a month’s worth of provisions,” Kavun recounted in a video shared by his unit. “There were both funny and not-so-funny stories. A cat was born in our dugout. Then it was wounded by a tank shell fragment, right there in the dugout.”

In the statement posted on social media by his brigade, Oleksiy described the horror of losing men under Russian fire, as well as the constant assaults that grew more intense if the weather was too poor for Ukraine to thwart attacks with drones.

“I see my main role as a commander as minimizing personnel losses. Ideally, there would be none at all … But in war, and in the infantry, this is, unfortunately, impossible,” he said. “As for my personal motivation, I don’t want my family, my daughter, to see what I see – explosions, incoming missiles, destroyed villages, death. That’s why I’m here.”

He is called “nerd” because of his “intellectual appearance” and his glasses, but also because he is a scientist by training with a biology degree from Karazin Kharkiv National University. In fact, Botanik’s entire unit of the 3rd Mountain Assault Battalion are former civilians or reservists who only made their way into the armed forces following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Oleksiy described how he maintained morale during his nearly one-year stint on the front line by making sure he and the soldiers working under him stayed in touch with those back home.

“I made sure everyone had the chance to contact their families every day; that helps a lot,” he said. “When the Starlink verification was taking place on the front line in February, our terminals weren’t working either … so we’d get in touch with the soldiers via radio and pass the message on to their families by phone. I know from my own experience just how important this is – I try to speak to my daughter every day.”

The officer was given a short period of leave after his 343 days on the front, which stretched from April 1, 2025, to March 8. 2026. During his roughly one month off, he said he celebrated his daughter’s 10th birthday and taught her how to ride a bike. Then, he returned to his unit.

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