A Ukrainian infantry officer spent 343 consecutive days on the front line, in one of the longest recorded missions of the conflict. The case illustrates the shortage of personnel in Ukraine’s armed forces, which resort to longer rotations and greater use of technology to compensate for numerical inferiority in relation to Russia.
Infantry officer Oleksiy spent 343 days without leaving the front line, in what his battalion considers to be one of the longest combat missions by an officer in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Their long mission, in forested areas between locations in the eastern Zaporizhzhia region, highlights Ukraine’s severe manpower shortage as the war continues.
The 37-year-old soldier had the opportunity to leave the frontline, but volunteered to remain due to personnel difficulties.
“My company is undersized (just like all the others) and, of those here, about half are over 50 years old,” said Oleksiy — whose nom de guerre is “Botanik,” meaning “nerd” — in a statement published by his unit. “Ideally, an infantry soldier should spend a month on a combat mission and a month recovering in a frontline village. But under current conditions this is completely unrealistic due to the lack of men.”
His battalion, which identified Oleksiy only by his first name, told CNN that a typical mission lasts about three to four months in his unit. Across the armed forces, soldiers typically serve on the front line in rotations of less than three months, although there is great variation.
Oleksiy, Ukrainian infantry officer. He is called a “nerd” due to his “intellectual appearance” and glasses, but also because he is a trained scientist, with a degree in Biology from Kharkiv National Karazin University. 128th Mountain Assault Brigade
“The infantry serves the longest, and the further away from the front line, the shorter the combat mission,” Major Yaroslav Halas, officer of the 3rd Mountain Assault Battalion of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, told CNN. “For example, UAV reconnaissance drone pilots may be in combat positions for 3 to 4 days, while FPV drone pilots stay for about a week (since they are closer to the front line).”
The increasingly long missions come as Ukrainian commanders of other units warn of staffing problems, acknowledging that the army will never be able to match the strength of the much larger Russian forces.
CNN has previously reported the rise of drones controlled by pilots positioned miles away from the front line, in the country’s attempt to leverage technological advances to its advantage. Ukraine also to recruit more men without valid exemption from military service.
In recent months, the local press has reported other cases of Ukrainian men who served long periods of service. Lt. Ivan Kavun, commander of a machine gun platoon in the 30th Mechanized Brigade, spent 486 days deployed on the front line, according to his unit.
“The supplies were delivered to us by drones. If a vehicle arrived, it would bring a month’s worth of provisions,” Kavun said in a video shared by his unit. “There were funny stories and not so funny ones. A cat was born in our underground shelter. Then it was injured by a tank fragment, right there in the shelter.”
In the statement published on social media by his brigade, Oleksiy described the horror of losing men under Russian fire, as well as the constant attacks, which intensified when bad weather prevented Ukraine from targeting them with drones.
“I see my main role as a commander in minimizing personnel losses. Ideally, there should be none… 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, falling missiles, destroyed villages, death. That’s why I’m here.”
He is called a “nerd” because of his “intellectual appearance” and glasses, but also because he is a scientist by training, with a degree in biology from Kharkiv National Karazin University. In fact, Botanik’s entire unit of the 3rd Mountain Assault Battalion is made up of former civilians or reservists who only joined the military after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Oleksiy described how he maintained morale for nearly a year on the front line by ensuring he and the soldiers under his command kept in touch with families.
“I made sure everyone had the opportunity to contact their families every day; that helps a lot,” he said. “When there was a frontline Starlink check in February, our terminals weren’t working either… so we radioed soldiers and relayed the message to families by phone. I know firsthand how important this is – I try to talk to my daughter every day.”
The officer took a short period of leave after his 343 days at the front, between April 1, 2025, and March 8, 2026. During about a month of rest, he is said to have celebrated his daughter’s 10th birthday and taught her how to ride a bicycle. Afterwards, he returned to his unit.
