6 months inside Ukraine's special forces show how covert missions shape the war behind the frontline

Ukrainian special forces officers spent six months on the mission to establish a bridgehead across the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine after an explosion destroyed the dam upstream

KHERSON, Ukraine -- Their first battle plan was outdated the moment the dam crumbled. So the Ukrainian special forces officers spent six months adapting their fight to secure a crossing to the other side of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine.

But it wasn’t enough just to cross the river. They needed backup to hold it. And for that, they needed proof that it could be done. For one of the officers, nicknamed Skif, that meant a Ukrainian flag — and a photo op.

Skif, Ukrainian shorthand for the nomadic Scythian people who founded an empire on what is now Crimea, moves like the camouflaged amphibian that he is: Calculating, deliberate, until the time to strike.

He is a Center 73 officer, one of Ukraine’s most elite units of special forces — water operations specialists, frontline scouts, drone operators, underwater saboteurs. They are part of the Special Operations Forces that run partisans in occupied territories, sneak into Russian barracks to plant bombs and prepare the ground for reclaiming territory seized by Russia.

Their mission on the more dynamic of the two main fronts in the six-month counteroffensive reflects many of the problems of Ukraine’s broader effort. It’s been one of the few counteroffensive successes for the Ukrainian army.