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https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukraine-defense-construction-russia-war-d72f2d29

Soldiers work on the construction of a bunker in eastern Ukraine.

Inside Ukraine’s Effort to Fortify Hundreds of Miles of Defensive Lines

Kyiv must install hundreds of lines of defense fast enough to outpace Russia’s advance

Soldiers work on the construction of a bunker in eastern Ukraine.

Matthew Luxmoore

and Nikita Nikolaienko | Photographs by Manu Brabo for WSJ

July 30, 2025 11:00 pm ET

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine—A line of antitank ditches and barbed wire cuts through the sunflower fields all the way to the horizon here in Ukraine’s battle-scarred east, fortifications the country bets it can lay fast and far enough to halt Russia’s summer offensive. But the defensive gamble is facing increasingly long odds.

Kyiv is in the midst of its most ambitious defensive construction effort to date, erecting obstacles and carving up the earth to thwart manned and unmanned assaults. While riflemen scan the sky for enemy robots, Ukraine’s own drone operators sit below them in an extensive network of subterranean dugouts.

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Inside Ukraine’s Effort to Fortify Hundreds of Miles of Defensive Lines

Kyiv must install hundreds of lines of defense fast enough to outpace Russia’s advance

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