officials. cnn s nick paton walsh finds a new vantage point where ukrainian soldiers have a surprisingly positive outlook. reporter: putin would leave little of what he claims to liberate. an artillery duel has been raging for days. up on high, in a position we were asked not to reveal, these ukrainian troops dug in and have a clear view of the damage below. but also their enemy. so the russians are just a kilometer on the brow of this hill in that direction. this unit, only here two days but have already destroyed a russian tank. yes, they play to the kamras. but it s pretty clear up here their morale is sky high.
find themselves being attacked by ukraine. this is a scene from 1916 and the western front. it is nick used the word stalemate, it is less than that because there is maneuver attempts on both sides. the russians come forward, try to occupy a bit of land, ukrainian forces which don t have the mobility as the russians do will attack them and then the russians will withdraw. and then it s relegated to an artillery duel back and forth. that s what we re seeing and seeing by all accounts, that russia is suffering quite a bit of casualties and quite a bit of equipment damage. so this is really boiling down to a war of attrition which many of us predicted weeks ago between the two forces and in my view, ukraine has the upper hands, they have the better weapons and are going up against a force with low morale and the inability to maneuver outside of the donbas area. so according to british intelligence, general hertling,
country where the ukrainians and russians have been fighting now for eight years, both know the terrain, both of them know the roads, the railways, the towns, the villages. this could become a bit of a long slog. you re already starting to see a heavy reliance on artillery. this is why we re sending howitzers in. long-range fires in a flat open area, much like kansas, that s important. you re seeing both sides use that. when you start getting into an artillery duel, that s what this ends up becoming, it could end up being a longer conflict than i think anybody wants. we re a couple days beyond victory day. we heard from vladimir putin then. he didn t make any big pronouncements. right. as you and the pentagon assess what he said, what hidden messages was there anything this that he did say that worried you? the thing that concerned us was the maximalist rhetoric. he kept referring to getting rid of nazis in ukraine, which is a ridiculous claim. but he might believe that. or i
sam joins us now from kramatorsk. the volunteers you spoke with, they must be scared for their own safety. reporter: oh, they re very scared. very frequently they come under artillery fire. there s very small, very low levels of small arms fire here, indeed that s been the characteristic of this war in general, but particularly in this phase, anderson. this is an artillery duel going on, particularly in the east, just north of where i am, where i was with maria there, we could hear regular detonations from incoming and outgoing artillery. just now, as dawn is breaking here in kramatorsk, there s been an uptick in artillery exchanges. and that s typical of the soviet style of doing war, which is to bombard villages into oblivion very often and then try to take over the landscape, a landscape that will be devoid of human
tens of thousands of people are staying on in their homes across this region. in a nearby church, orthodox easter service are dominated by prayers for peace. but the unholy ghost of war looms heavily here. sam joins us now from kramatorsk. the volunteers you spoke with, they must be scared for their own safety. reporter: oh, they re very scared. very frequently they come under artillery fire. there s very small, very low levels of small arms fire here, indeed that s been the characteristic of this war in general but particularly in this phase, anderson. this is an artillery duel going on, particularly in the east, just north of where i am, where i was with maria there, we could hear regular detonations from incoming and outgoing artillery.