Infantry officer Oleksiy Mikhailov spent 343 days without leaving the front lines in his battalion, which he considers one of the longest combat deployments for an officer in the Ukrainian army.
His long deployment in a forested area between settlements in the eastern Zaporozhye region highlights Ukraine’s severe labor shortage as the war continues for more than four years.
The 37-year-old had the opportunity to leave the front, but due to a lack of manpower, he volunteered to stay.
“My company (as well as others) is understaffed, and about half of the employees here are over 50 years old,” Mikhailov, whose call sign is “Botaniku,” also known as “Otaku,” said in a statement released by his unit last week. “Ideally, infantrymen would spend a month on combat missions and a month recovering in front-line villages. But in the current situation, it is completely unrealistic due to the lack of personnel.”
His battalion told CNN that the unit’s typical deployment period is about three to four months. Throughout the military, soldiers typically serve on the front lines for rotations of less than three months, but their length varies widely.
Maj. Jaroslav Halas, an officer with the 3rd Mountain Assault Battalion of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, told CNN: “Infantry soldiers have the longest period of service, and the farther they are from the front lines, the shorter their combat deployments are.” “For example, a reconnaissance UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) pilot may stay in a combat position for three to four days, whereas an FPV drone pilot (due to their proximity to the front lines) may stay for a week.”
The prolonged deployment comes as Ukrainian military commanders in other units have warned of manpower problems and acknowledged that their forces will never match the personnel of the much larger Russian military.
CNN previously reported that Ukraine is increasing its use of land-based robots and drones controlled by pilots operated miles from the front lines, as it seeks to use technological advances to gain an advantage. Ukraine is also stepping up efforts to conscript more men without valid military service exemptions.
Other cases of Ukrainian men working long-term jobs have been reported in local media in recent months. Senior Lieutenant Ivan Kabun, commander of a machine gun platoon in the 30th Mechanized Brigade, spent 486 days in front-line deployments, the unit said.
“Supplies were dropped on us by drones. If the vehicles come, they will bring a month’s worth of food,” Kabun said in a video shared by the force. “There were both funny and not-so-funny stories. The cat was born in our dugout, and it was just injured by a tank shell fragment inside the dugout.”
In a statement posted by the Mikhailov Brigade on social media, Mikhailov described the fear of losing soldiers to Russian artillery fire and the constant attacks that intensify when the weather is too bad for Ukraine to thwart drone strikes.
“I believe that my main role as a commander is to minimize the loss of personnel. Ideally, there would be no loss of personnel at all…but in war, and in infantry, unfortunately this is not possible,” he said. “My personal motivation is that I don’t want my family and my daughter to see what I’m seeing: the explosions, the missiles, the destroyed villages, the deaths. That’s why I’m here.”
He is called a “nerd” because of his “intelligent appearance” and glasses, but also because he is a scientist with a degree in biology from Karazin Kharkiv State University. In fact, the entire unit of Botanik’s 3rd Mountain Assault Battalion are former civilians or reservists who first joined the military after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Mikhailov said that during his nearly one year on the front lines, he maintained morale by ensuring that he and the soldiers working under him were in constant contact with soldiers back home.
“We’ve made sure that everyone can contact their families every day, which is very helpful,” he said. “When Starlink was being tested on the front lines in February, our terminals weren’t working either… So we were communicating with our soldiers by radio and relaying that message to their families by phone. I know from my own experience how important this is. I try to talk to my daughter every day.”
On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy awarded Mikhailov the Order of the Gold Star and the title of Hero of Ukraine, the country’s highest honor. The President noted Mr. Mikhailov’s personal courage and heroism.
Mr. Mikhailov was given a short leave of absence after 343 days of frontline service from April 1, 2025 to March 8, 2026. During his roughly one-month vacation, he celebrated his daughter’s 10th birthday and taught her how to ride a bicycle, he said. He then returned to his unit.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Victoria Butenko contributed to this report.
