Young defenders of Ukraine's Niu York don't see the war ending any time soon
Many Ukrainian soldiers are welcoming the arrival of Donald Trump, feeling he's likely to be tougher with Russian President Vladimir Putin than Joe Biden was.
That's the view of journalist David Kirichenko after visiting one of the toughest parts of the frontline, and I've been speaking to him.
American journalist Mr Kirichenko is from a Ukrainian family, speaks the language and throughout the war has been reporting from some of the most dangerous sectors of the frontline.
In December 2024, he returned to eastern Ukraine embedding with the Azov Brigade as they fought Russian troops around Niu York, a critical frontline town located just south of Toretsk.
Russian forces seized the town last summer, only for the Ukrainians to recapture it a few months later.
Mr Kirichenko said: "They're all extremely motivated in terms of when you sit down and you talk to these young men about Ukrainian history or Ukrainian politics.
"They're very enthusiastic to break down a 1,000-year history of how this war came to be, Ukraine's and Russia's history and the challenges that they were telling me about that Trump will encounter when trying to negotiate with the Russians because they don't see this war ending any time soon.
"It is going to continue on and on until the root causes of this war are solved.
"They're not going to be solved by freezing the line, or finding some sort of peace agreement with Putin, who according to them, wants to destroy and subjugate all of Ukraine."
Azov had a controversial reputation with allegations of links to the far right.
The brigade was banned from receiving US weaponry – an embargo only lifted last summer.
But it also earned a fearsome reputation for its defence of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol and is now a formal unit within Ukraine's National Guard.
Mr Kirichenko said: "Being with the Azov Brigade, I thought was one of the most interesting things was the soldiers and commanders were so young.
"Some of the commanders that I was speaking to were like 22 or 25. The guys there are very young and a lot of them that I spoke to fought in Mariupol.
"These are battle-hardened soldiers, but very young. It makes you stop, and pause and think these men have the experiences of a 40 or 50-year-old commander in any given army."
David also spent time with teams of Ukrainian combat medics, volunteers who work in some of the most dangerous parts of the frontline.
"Any sort of labelling on your vans or vehicles that designates as Red Cross, humanitarian or medical, the Russian specifically try to target and hit them so they can't rescue soldiers," said David.
"If the Russians do see an ambulance or the medics, they will dedicate and send as many drones as they can to try to hit those evacs and medics and try to kill them."
Niu York is 50 miles east of Pokrovsk, a logistics hub for the Ukrainian military and a highly strategic town that Russia wants to capture as part of its efforts to take the whole of the Donbas.
Ukrainian troops still hold Pokrovsk, but it's under constant bombardment, with Russian forces trying to encircle it and force a Ukrainian retreat as happened in Avdiivka a year ago.
He went on: "If the Russians were to go and try to take Pokrovsk head-on, the Ukrainians are ready for it, and it would be very difficult for the Russians.
"It would be a very bloody battle, but I think the Russians are trying to avoid that and they're taking the villages on the flanks of Pokrovsk. They're trying to encircle it which has been quite successful."
When asked about new US president Donald Trump and if Ukrainian troops thought his arrival would affect any peace negotiations, David said there was optimism.
He said: "There is a bit more optimism and hope in terms of Trump coming to power.
"They think Trump is offended or very upset at what Russia does, and Russia doesn't care to negotiate and then there's a feeling that Trump might just decide let's just give them Tomahawk missiles or let the Ukrainians start bombing Moscow.
"There seems to be greater manoeuvrability with Trump."
David says many of the troops he met see Donald Trump as a better match for Vladimir Putin than Joe Biden.
Whether that's true will become clearer in the coming weeks and months as the new administration's policy on Ukraine emerges.
But whatever that strategy is, the men and women David encountered, many of them very young, remain motivated to fight on.
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