Ukraine: The soldiers who can’t leave the front line until the war is over

Open-ended service, just 10 days' leave a year and a high casualty rate - for Ukrainian soldiers in one unit, life on the front line is far from easy, as BBC Newsnight witnessed up close.

Standing among some flattened buildings, "Jimmy", a Ukrainian officer who's been on active service for years, reflected on his survival: "I'm a lucky man… as I see it, war can either love people or not."

His soldiers think the fact Jimmy's still with them, despite multiple wounds, means he lives a charmed life.

His unit, the 24th Mechanised Brigade, has a long history, and is part of the old regular Ukrainian army, fighting the Russians from 2014. But since the invasion of February 2022, the army has more than trebled in size, the nation mobilised and Jimmy's unit changed out of all recognition.

We spent two weeks in August with the 24th, which now serves in the Donbas, that old centre of smokestack industries in the east, occupying a section of the front between Bakhmut and Horlivka.