our nick paton walsh has the story. even saving the dead can be lethal work. it is dawn and freshly overrun russian positions on the southern front where the assault on trench networks are spread out in the open. this is rare footage letting us see the point of view of a ukrainian soldier and body collector. his unit tasked with bringing back the fallen, their own, but also russian dead. this ukrainian body seeming to have almost melted into the ground. the heat speeding up decay, another factor in this grim, gloomy work where they re often guided to their target by the smell from which the masks aren t enough. [ speaking non-english language ]
counteroffensive is difficult. on the eastern front line, which ukraine s military calls the epicenter of the fighting, we have new video tonight, this into outfront, showing ukrainian soldiers clearing out russian positions. that s what you re looking at here. a chechen fighter lifting his head out of the trench, quickly trying to hide. the ukrainians do open fire on him. well, those trenches are deadly. and tonight we have exclusive access inside a trench through footage shared by the ukraine military with our nick paton walsh, who is there, and it is a report that you will see first outfront. i do want to warn you, though. what you re about to see tonight is graphic. reporter: even saving the dead can be lethal work. it is dawn and freshly overrun russian positions on the southern front where the assault is on trench networks spread out in the open. this is rare footage letting us see the point of view of a
you ve been able to look at it and in it you have been able to see what the russians are doing. what they are doing to prepare for what they expect in this counteroffensive. what do you see there? erin, what this looks like is that trench networks that were before world war ii and then existed during world war i. if we see extensive russian dragons teeth these are period mitch deep trenches, burns really the largest kinds of trench networks that we have seen since to try to slow down a ukrainian advance as part of an offensive. a brutal war coming. now what about what nick mentioned? the biden administration estimate? you heard john kirby saying
chopsticks? so i had like 1000 chopsticks in my house, and i have all these little pockets of hot sauce that i was going to send to cooper. over the past weeks, graphic battle footage has emerged, showing what it is like when russians get into ukraine trench networks. here, a soldier races. but soon, a shallots. they are all miraculously okay, but the attack has started. watch and you see a russian approach throw a grenade. he misses. and they go on to shoot down russian s advancing meters from
the main benchmarks of success? and i know there s more than one. yes, certainly. i think we need to have a clear view of what will look like a successful offensive. firstly, the ukraines do need to take back their territory. they want to liberate their citizens and take back their sovereign territory. but they re also going to have to capture or destroy russian forces to ensure the russians can t undertake counterattacks. finally, the ukrainians will have to ensure that their own people but also politicians and citizens in the west see a successful offensive. so they re going to have to communicate what s going on and communicate a successful offensive in that reality. yeah, to keep up that all-important western support if nothing else. russia has known this was coming, of course, and they spent a lot of time bolstering defenses, an array of barriers. there are these huge trench networks we ve seen, particularly along the southern front. they ve been rearming and so on.