Commentary
In August 2022, I became a rifleman in an infantry battalion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (Zbroyny Sily Ukrainy, ZSU). Over the course of the following year, I would spend a total of ten months fighting with the unit on the front lines in the Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk Oblasts. Before joining the ZSU, I had been a Ph.D. student in political science and before that an officer in the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic. My time in the trenches gave me certain insights into the war that, I hope, might be useful to readers who want to gain a better understanding of the most important armed conflict of our lifetimes. They might also be interesting to those who want to help NATO militaries better prepare for future conflicts.
