NEAR KUPIANSK, Ukraine: After spending another night on watch duty, a Ukrainian soldier near the country’s northeastern front crashed out on a bunk inside his dugout, a cap resting over his closed eyes.rIt is -8 degrees Celsius (18 Fahrenheit) outside, snow crunching underfoot as troops from the 41st Mechanized Brigade shuffle around their trenches, east of the town of Kupiansk. “It’s hard, but we’re holding on,” said Vadim, a 31-year-old member of the brigade.r“We have no choice,” he added. Nearly two years of unremitting trench warfare have pushed Ukraine’s troops to the brink of exhaustion.rIts army is struggling to find men for the front, in contrast to the outpouring of patriotic volunteers at the start of the war. Kyiv has kept its losses secret, but the latest US estimates published in August by the New York Times put the death toll at nearly 70,000 and the number of wounded at up to 120,000.rThe town of Kupiansk and surrounding Kharkiv region were liberated from Russian occupation in September 2022 following a lightning push by the Ukrainians. But since the summer, Russian forces have again been on the offensive here without making any major progress.r“They’re constantly carrying out attacks, advancing,” Vadim said. He said adrenaline got them through the first year, when they “weren’t afraid of anything”. “But now, we’re simply tired. Because two years in, we haven’t seen the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.rPresident Volodymyr Zelensky warned in December the military wanted to mobilize up to half a million people to battle the 600,000 or so Russians deployed in Ukraine. But earlier this month, parliament refused to debate a controversial bill aimed at mobilizing more soldiers, amid fierce criticism from the public and lawmakers. For an army that has been struggling to fill its ranks, let alone reprieve its long-serving frontline troops, this was a painful blow.r“Of course we want demobilization, because it’s hard. I haven’t seen my family in six months,” said Vadim. But he added: “It’s not a matter of them giving us 10 days. That wouldn’t be of any use... What kind of rest would that be?”r“If they gave us at least six months off, that would be better,” he said. Calls to demobilise troops come at a difficult time for the army, which is now facing renewed Russian pressure across the eastern front.rAfter a year of grinding warfare that has failed to yield major territorial gains on either side, Moscow is throwing more manpower into the conflict and has been upping strikes on Ukrainian positions.r“The intensity of the hostilities aimed at us is now quite high, and there are more wounded than we’d like,” said Oleksandr, a 20-year-old soldier who also refused to give his last name for security reasons.rOleksandr pointed out that “today, generally speaking, it’s older men who are mobilized”, so there are reserves that can be called up. “We need mobilization and we have the means to do it.”rBut the patriotic impetus of the early months, when Ukrainians went en masse to the front voluntarily, is no longer there. “Since the first days of the invasion, we’ve almost always been on the front line...,” said Vadim. “The guys are tired. Mentally, physically, they can’t take it anymore,” he said. rrTwo people were shot dead in a Ukrainian border village on Saturday morning in a cross-border incursion by a Russian "reconnaissance and sabotage group," local officials said. The attack happened in Ukraine's Sumy region inside a five-kilometer (three mile) buffer zone along the border with Russia -- an area where Kyiv had asked residents to evacuate.r"This morning, an enemy reconnaissance and sabotage group brutally and cynically shot a brother and sister," the Sumy regional administration said in a statement.rThe incident happened in the village of Andriivka, four kilometer (2.5 miles) from the border with Russia's western Kursk region, it added.rThough infrequent, such cross-border attacks and incursions by guerilla-style fighters have been recorded throughout the nearly two-year war.rRussian authorities have also accused Ukrainian groups of armed raids into towns and villages on its side of the border, killing civilians.rUkrainian authorities on Saturday renewed their appeal for residents to leave border areas.r"Russian terrorists continue to kill civilians. By evacuating from dangerous areas, you will save your life," Sumy Governor Volodymyr Artyukh said.rAt least three other civilians were killed in Russian attacks in the east and south of the country, local officials said Saturday.-- AFP