Yuriy Korpan is 39 years old but looks a decade older, his face worn as he returns from a week of combat near Bakhmut.
The Ukrainian infantryman, a father of three, was fighting to retake Bakhmut, a city which fell entirely into Russian hands in May after a battle that lasted nearly a year.
On his last day on the frontline before a week's rest, Korpan remembers "the bombing started at four in the morning with mortar and artillery fire.
"Then it calmed down a bit. Then an hour later, the enemy attacked," he told AFP.
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