In a dilapidated farm shed in New York’s rural North Country, the belongings of a migrant family who quietly took shelter one night were still visible months later: some clothing and children’s shoes, stiffened by the cold and a thin blanket of snow.

Thomas Brassard recalled his surprise when he saw the family — a husband, wife and two children — emerge from the shed as he started his truck in the early morning.

They asked him in broken English if he could give them a ride to the nearest city. He apologetically told them he couldn’t help and then placed a call to the Border Patrol, which quickly detained them.

It has become a familiar scene here in Champlain, N.Y., nestled on the state’s border with Canada, so much so that the mayor keeps knit hats and gloves in the trunk of her car to hand out to the migrants she encounters.

“The weather is so severe you just can’t survive,” said Janet McFetridge, the village’s mayor. “Border Patrol is working extremely hard to save people’s lives because that’s what it’s come down to.”

As migrants continue to overwhelm the southern border in record numbers, a growing wave is trying an alternative route into the United States: across the less fortified, more expansive Canadian border.

Rather than deal with an arduous journey through the Darién Gap in Panama and a near-certain encounter with the Border Patrol, migrants from as far as Mexico, India and Venezuela who have the wherewithal have been flying to Canada — taking advantage of border crossings without any imposing walls or fences.

Yet perilous conditions have led to repeated rescues of migrants who get stranded in dark woods or have to be treated for hypothermia. At least a dozen migrants — families, children, a pregnant mother — have died attempting to cross in the past two years, their frozen bodies recovered from rivers and forests.

Officials at the northern border recorded 191,603 encounters with people crossing into the United States in 2023, a 41 percent increase from 2022 — though still a small number in comparison with the more than two million people apprehended on the southern border last year.

And while the vast majority of those migrants presented themselves at official ports of entry to request asylum, a growing number were caught after crossing illegally into the United States, sometimes guided by smugglers.

More than 12,200 people were apprehended crossing illegally from Canada last year, a 241 percent jump from the 3,578 arrested the previous year. Most of them were Mexicans, who can fly to Canada without a visa and may prefer the northern border to avoid the cartels that exploit migrants in their country.

The phenomenon has transformed a 295-mile border area along northern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire into a hot spot of migration: About 70 percent of the illegal crossings in 2023 happened on this stretch, known as the Swanton Sector.

Robert Garcia, the chief patrol agent in charge of the Swanton Sector, said in a social media post on Friday that the 3,100 people apprehended in the sector since October — more than the past four fiscal years combined — hailed from 55 countries.

Clinton County, N.Y., a rural swath of farms and small towns just south of Quebec Province, has emerged as one of the main passageways for migrants heading south, unsettling some residents and local officials.

“It’s a hard thing to do for freedom,” Mr. Brassard said in a recent interview on his fiancée’s farm, less than a mile south of the border. He expressed some slight remorse about turning the family in. “It was actually sad,” he said, “because the kids said thank you and stuff.”

People like Mr. Brassard have increasingly spotted migrants marching across their fields and backyards, or lugging suitcases down dark back roads. After crossing from Canada, some migrants shelter from the frigid cold inside residents’ barns and garages, sometimes unnoticed except for the motion-activated deer hunting cams that capture them in the dead of night.

Dale Tetreault, 57, a third-generation dairy farmer, said that three migrants from Guatemala recently took refuge in one of his milk houses. One of his workers, who is Latin American and spoke with them in Spanish, told him the migrants had just crossed from Canada and were looking for work.

Mr. Tetreault called the Border Patrol, which showed up within minutes to pick them up.

“I understand where they’re coming from and how horrible it has to be to make that kind of venture to get here, to try to find a place where you can find a good life,” Mr. Tetreault said as he stood by one of his rows of 1,200 cows last month. “But on the other side, it’s like, I’m not going to accidentally house the wrong people either, you know what I mean? It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

About a dozen residents who live just south of the border expressed mixed opinions about the influx of migrants, with most expressing sympathy in interviews with The New York Times. But many said the encounters with strangers on their property had made them uneasy. Others said they felt indifferent, largely unbothered as long as the migrants kept to themselves.

Residents in Clinton County, which leans conservative but has voted Democratic in the last presidential elections, had become accustomed to a northward migration, with refugees passing through on their way to claim asylum in Canada.

That pattern exploded in 2017 — when thousands of asylum seekers began crossing the county on their way to Canada because they feared deportation under the Trump presidency — and continues to this day. Quebec’s leader warned in January that the crush of asylum seekers was leading the province to a “breaking point,” and Canadian officials are considering implementing a visa requirement for Mexican travelers.

But the increasing number of migrants moving south into the United States has created a two-way flow that has overwhelmed and frustrated local officials in New York’s North Country. They argue it is straining local law enforcement resources, forcing Border Patrol agents to respond to too many calls and putting migrants at risk.

“The northern border has been pretty much ignored,” said Assemblyman Billy Jones, a Democrat who represents Clinton County, saying that the federal government was “failing on immigration, and they’re failing the people that live along the border.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said in a statement that the country had forged a close working relationship with Canada “to facilitate lawful crossings through ports of entry and to counter irregular migration, including in the Swanton Sector.”

“C.B.P. continuously adjusts to shifting trends while continuing to call on Congress to provide the resources and personnel necessary to sustain and improve our border security along all our borders,” an agency spokeswoman said in a statement.

The illegal crossings are sometimes facilitated by new human smuggling operations, often based outside New York, which advertise their services on social media and charge migrants thousands of dollars to get them into the country from Canada, often leaving them indebted to the smugglers.

Federal prosecutors in Syracuse have filed a series of cases aimed at taking down smuggling enterprises, detailing in court documents how smugglers — both American and foreign — help guide migrants through woods and coordinate drivers with out-of-state plates to pick them up once they get through.

The arrests come as numerous migrants have died attempting to cross treacherous conditions, sometimes lured by smugglers.

In January 2022, an Indian family of four — including a 11-year-old girl and 3-year-old boy — was found frozen to death just feet from the border in Manitoba, Canada. A year later, the bodies of eight people — an Indian family and a Romanian family — were recovered from the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. All were trying to cross into the United States.

In January 2023, Fritznel Richard, 44, a Haitian man traveling to the United States, was found frozen to death in the woods of a border municipality in Quebec. The next month, Jose Leos Cervantes, 45, from Mexico, collapsed and died shortly after walking into Vermont.

And on Dec. 14, authorities found the body of a 33-year-old woman from Mexico who was five months pregnant in the Great Chazy River in Champlain. The woman, Ana Vasquez Flores, had traveled from Quebec and was trying to reunite with her husband in the United States.

Shortly after, American prosecutors accused a Colombian man living in Canada of selling his smuggling services on TikTok to Ms. Vasquez Flores and her husband, and charging them $2,500 to guide her across the border via text messages. The man was arrested and extradited to the United States.

Portions of the U.S.-Canadian border — which at 5,525 miles is the longest international border in the world — are separated by natural barriers, such as the Great Lakes. But much of the border, especially in northeastern New York, is flat and barren, dotted with just woods or open fields where simple stone markers delineate the boundary.

Many migrants crossing illegally into the United States, officials said, are cutting through traversable woods that may still be perilous. Temperatures regularly drop below zero on cold winter nights, making it dangerously cold for those without adequate clothing. And the woods can be pocked with streams, ponds and swamps that freeze quickly.

Border Patrol officials said they have conducted 15 rescue missions in which 37 individuals were rescued along the northern border since October 2022.

David Favro, the Clinton County sheriff, whose department has been involved in some of the missions, said migrants regularly get disoriented in the forest or fall into freezing waters and suffer hypothermia, sometimes losing toes.

“They get lost in the woods,” Mr. Favro said in an interview in his office. “They lose sense of what direction they’re actually going in. They actually walk in circles for hours at a time.”

Mr. Favro, a Republican who supports tightening the nation’s immigration laws, said that Border Patrol needed “more boots on the ground.” The northern border has about 2,200 Border Patrol agents, according to federal officials.

Migrants who cross successfully into the United States are routinely apprehended by Border Patrol agents, who find them using sensors, thermal camera systems and even drones, or by responding to calls from residents.

“We were going to turn ourselves in, but they spotted us first,” said Liam Parra, 22, a Venezuelan migrant who arrived from Canada two weeks ago with a friend, Albert Colina, 24.

Both men had crossed from New York into Canada nearly a year ago seeking work. They found seasonal jobs in construction and packaging fruits in Niagara Falls, Canada, but decided to return to the United States this year, with hopes of reaching Orlando, Fla., after that work dried up.

“Canada is beautiful and all,” Mr. Colina said in Spanish. “But when the snow arrives, the work goes away.”

Crossing back into the United States, in their case, was surprisingly simple: They traveled to Montreal, rode a one-hour Uber to a wooded area of the border and walked over in a matter of minutes, they said.

Like many migrants, Mr. Parra and Mr. Colina were briefly detained by U.S. immigration officials. They underwent a criminal-background check and were then let go on parole — a status that allows migrants without visas to live and work in the United States temporarily as they await their court dates.

Once they were released, a taxi driver charged them $120 for a 20-minute ride from the border to Plattsburgh, N.Y., the largest city in Clinton County. The inflated taxi fare left them without enough money to afford the $90 tickets for a bus to New York City, stranding them in Plattsburgh.

For over a week, they wandered the city, waiting for money transfers from friends or trying unsuccessfully to persuade Greyhound bus drivers to give them a free ride. The two men, along with other migrants from Colombia and Haiti, slept at the local airport — a two-hour walk from downtown — or at roadside motels where county officials are required to put up people without shelter when temperatures drop below 32 degrees.

For the majority of migrants, Plattsburgh is a steppingstone in their journey north to Canada or south to larger cities, including New York City, a five-hour bus ride away, as well as final destinations as far as Arkansas and Seattle.

But many migrants seen on a visit to Plattsburgh last month were seemingly stuck in the city, passing time at a gas station and bus stop that serves as a de facto meeting point for migrants. Most had hoped to cross into Canada but were turned away by Canadian immigration officials, who have become strict about the documentation migrants need to claim asylum.

One migrant in Plattsburgh, Javier Semeco, 34, from Colombia, hugged his 8-year-old boy as he haggled with a taxi driver who was trying to charge him $70 for a short ride to the Canadian border. Using a translation app on the driver’s phone, they settled on $25, the only cash Mr. Semeco said he had.

Canadian officials turned Mr. Semeco away at the border hours later. He was forced to walk for hours with his young son along a snowy highway back to Plattsburgh.

After traveling for months from Venezuela and across the Mexican border to reunite with his sister in Canada, Dennys Ortega, 58, was also turned away at northern border.

Mr. Ortega had sought to claim asylum by proving he had family members in Canada; his sister, Damarys, says she has lived there for 40 years and is a Canadian citizen. But immigration officials said they found minor inconsistencies in his story and rejected his claim, according to immigration documents he was given.

Without much money or a place to live and possessing few English skills, Mr. Ortega was left to wonder what had gone wrong and what he would do next.

“They denied him his right,” said his sister, who drove to Plattsburgh from Quebec to meet him at a diner two days later. “They just left him out in the cold.”

Audio produced by Patricia Sulbarán.

In 2014, nine blue whales died after becoming stuck in the ice near Newfoundland, Canada. Two of their carcasses washed ashore and began to swell as they decomposed, raising concerns of an impending explosion and possibly inspiring a sketch on “Saturday Night Live” that ended with Charlize Theron covered with whale intestines. More recently, the colossal corpses of these unfortunate mammals have made important contributions to science.

Nearly a decade after their deaths, researchers analyzed the beached whales' DNA – along with samples collected from 26 other blue whales – to create the best results. to date provides an accurate picture of the structure of the North Atlantic population. The results, published this month in the journal Conservation Genetics, reveal a ticking time bomb in blue whale demographics, peculiar migration patterns and even clandestine matings between species.

The world population of blue whales was severely damaged by industrial whaling in the early 20th century. A declining population can increase inbreeding rates, which can reduce variation in a population's gene pool and increase the risk of species extinction.

With fewer than 3,500 adult blue whales left in the North Atlantic, scientists expected to find such a genetic bottleneck. At first they were surprised when their genomic analysis showed no signs of this. They say this could be a result of the time it takes blue whales to reproduce – about 30 years to go from one generation to the next.

“It's probably not been enough time to really see a bottleneck effect,” said Mark Engstrom, a genomicist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, who oversaw the research effort.

That blue whales in the North Atlantic have “maintained their genetic variation despite about a century of industrial whaling” is good news, says Axel Janke, a genomicist at Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany, who was not involved in the study.

But if the population doesn't grow over the next century, Dr. Engstrom says, he expects a bottleneck to emerge — to the detriment of the whales.

Whalers historically thought that the North Atlantic blues were split into distinct eastern and western populations. But the whales' DNA tells a different story. The team of Dr. Engstrom found ample evidence for mixing between east and west.

“There are differences,” he said, “but that is a fairly recent split.” Typically, genes flow from western blue whales to those in the east. The team speculates that this movement may reflect the North Atlantic Current, in which seawater flows from west to east. Western whales may follow their favorite food, krill, as the waves wash the prawns east, where they encounter another population of whales.

Even more surprising, genes cross both evolutionary and geographic boundaries.

It has long been known that blue whales mate and reproduce with fin whales, even though the two are not particularly close relatives – and blue whales can be over 7 meters longer and as much as 85 tonnes heavier. Many hybrid animals (like mules for example) are infertile. But armed with their new data set, Dr. Engstrom evidence of persistent mixing between species. All told, about 3.5 percent of the blue whale's genome comes from fin whales.

“This is fantastic,” said Dr. Janke. He had previously looked for blue whale DNA in fin whale genomes but didn't find it. The new data, coupled with an analysis that Dr. Engstrom has conducted, suggesting that the hybrids, although not sterile, only mate with blue whales.

“What traits are transferred from the fin whale to the blue whale?” asked Doctor Janke. He wonders whether these genes benefit blue whales in any way.

Dr. Engstrom plans to collect more blue whale genomes, of which Dr. Janke hopes it can help scientists better understand populations in other parts of the world. It's a big ocean, and with dwindling numbers of blue whales, knowledge is power, he said.

“There's kind of a motto that we have,” said Dr. Janke. “You can only protect what you know.”

There was a slight tremor in the Marine’s voice as he talked about the internecine fighting on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, where he was recently wounded.

“We were in the water at night and were being shot at by all kinds of things,” said Marine Maksym. “My comrades died before my eyes.”

For two months, the Ukrainian Marine Corps led an assault across the Dnipro River in the southern Kherson region to retake territory from Russian forces. The operation is Ukraine’s latest attempt in its counter-offensive to breach Russian defenses in the south and turn the tide of the war.

Soldiers and Marines who took part in the river crossings describe the offensive as brutal and futile, as waves of Ukrainian troops are crushed on the banks of the river or in the water before they reach the other side.

Conditions are so difficult, half a dozen men involved in the fighting said in interviews, that in most places there is no place to dig in. The first approaches are usually swampy islands full of streams or meadows that have become a mud pit. and bomb craters filled with water.

The soldiers and marines gave only their first names for security reasons or requested anonymity, and commanders rejected almost all media requests to visit military units in the Kherson region.

Several soldiers and Marines spoke to reporters out of concern about the high numbers of casualties and what they said were overly optimistic accounts from officials about the offensive’s progress.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said it was not immediately possible to comment on the soldiers’ accusations but would provide a response in due course.

Some of the heaviest fighting took place in the village of Krynky, on the eastern bank, thirty kilometers upriver from the city of Kherson, where Ukrainian forces seized a narrow strip of fishing houses – the only place where they could capture a stronghold.

But footage of the area, streamed live from a drone and seen by The New York Times, confirmed soldiers’ accounts of heavy Russian airstrikes that destroyed homes and turned the riverbank into a mass of mud and splintered trees.

New troops arriving on the eastern bank must step on the bodies of soldiers entangled in the churned mud, said Oleksiy, a veteran soldier who fought in Krynky in October and has crossed several times since to help evacuate the wounded.

Some of the dead Marines have been there for two months as units have been unable to retrieve the bodies due to heavy shelling, said Volodymyr, a deputy company commander who attended the funeral of one of his men. only as Denys, last week.

“The Left Bank is very difficult,” Volodymyr said. “Those who do it are the real heroes, men with great willpower.”

With Ukraine’s counter-offensive stalled and the United States and even the European Union showing signs of scaling back aid, the offensive across the rivers is being closely watched for signs that Ukraine could regain momentum against Russian forces. The hope is that they can make a breakthrough deep enough to threaten Russia’s supply routes and its hold in the south. The Marine Corps, rebuilt at full strength this year with a number of newly formed brigades, was assigned the task.

Since the war began, Ukrainian officials have tried to maintain a positive narrative in an effort to maintain morale at home and support abroad. The number of casualties is not published, nor are details of the setbacks suffered by Ukrainian troops.

In the case of the Dnipro, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and other officials have recently suggested that the Marines have gained a foothold on the eastern bank. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a statement Last month they claimed to have established several strongholds.

But Marines and soldiers who have been there say these accounts overstate the case.

“There are no positions. There is no such thing as an observation post or position,” Oleksiy said. “It is impossible to gain a foothold there. It is impossible to move equipment there.”

“It’s not even a fight for survival,” he added. “It’s a suicide mission.”

Oleksiy said the Ukrainian commanders’ poor preparation and logistics had decimated his battalion. Wounded men were left behind because of a lack of boats, he said, and the brutal conditions were damaging soldiers’ morale and support for each other.

“People who end up there are not psychologically prepared,” he said. “They don’t even understand where they are going. The command that sends them there tells them nothing.”

Oleksiy agreed to let The Times publish his report out of frustration over the losses. “I haven’t seen anything like that in Bakhmut or Soledar,” he said, referring to two of the most intense battles on the Eastern Front. “It’s so wasteful.”

Russian air raids along the river banks marked on the Control map of Ukraine, which geolocates video footage of strikes on both sides of the front, confirms his description. The map shows heavy Russian aerial bombardments at several intersections along a 40-mile stretch of the river.

The Russian troops are also suffering heavy losses, according to various sources. The map shows multiple hits from Ukrainian artillery, rockets and drones on Russian troops and armor in all major settlements along the eastern bank. The city of Kherson has been repeatedly attacked by the Russians, but it also resounds with the constant fire of Ukrainian artillery.

“Generally we are on hunting duty,” said Yevhen Karas, 36, deputy commander of the 14th Separate Regiment, who was visiting one of his units operating drones against Russian targets across the river. He asked that the location not be revealed for security reasons.

“The main priority is Russian artillery and defending our operations,” said Karas, whose surname is also his military call sign. After two months of operations, he said, Russian units in the area and long-range artillery had been severely suppressed. Russian troops generally stayed under cover during the day and therefore moved only at night, he said.

From 2014, Karas led a volunteer military group, C14, which watchdog groups describe as far-right. In 2016, it was integrated into the Ukrainian army as a special operations force.

The Marines suffered, Karas said, but the Ukrainian attacks had unnerved Russian commanders, who brought back an airborne unit from the Zaporizhia front to shore up defenses.

“They are very afraid that this month, or in the spring or summer, Ukraine will increase its territory to expand and liberate the eastern bank,” he said, adding that he was monitoring, among other things, radio intercepts of Russian communications .

Even a small territorial gain would give Ukraine the opportunity to attack Russian supply routes to Crimea, he said. But for now, the cross-river operation was not aimed at a breakthrough but at capturing and killing as many Russian troops as possible, he said.

Drones proved crucial in that battle, providing reconnaissance and guiding artillery while increasingly bombarding troops and equipment with explosives. A kamikaze drone was cheaper and more accurate than expensive artillery shells, which are becoming increasingly scarce, said the unit’s commander, Dzhmil, 37, giving his call sign.

“We read the newspapers and we know who is helping us and that everything has a price,” he said, referring to growing debates in the United States and Europe over aid to Ukraine. This week, the threat of future aid cuts only grew as Mr. Zelensky’s efforts to win support in the European Union and the U.S. Congress were rebuffed.

Ukrainian artillery and drone units were well placed along the western bank of the river, which has the advantage of being higher than the eastern bank and providing access to supplies, electricity and logistics, Karas said.

But while Russian artillery has been suppressed in some areas, the armed forces have retaliated with devastating aerial bombardments, rocket attacks and a large number of drones.

Marine Maksym, who was recovering in hospital after being wounded in Krynky in November, said the Russian airstrikes and fire from tanks, artillery and mortars were so intense that his platoon could not advance from the basements where the soldiers first had sought refuge.

After three men were killed in an air raid, the platoon was ordered to evacuate. It became a chaotic and disastrous retreat. The soldiers came under shell fire as they walked to the riverbank in the dark, but upon arrival were told they would have to wait three hours for the boats to pick them up.

“It was a swamp, all in craters filled with water,” Maksym said, adding: “We had no choice but to try to dig as deep as we could.”

“Everyone was already hurt by then,” he said. A boat came, with a different mission, which took away the most seriously injured.

While they waited for more boats, Russian planes bombed the riverbank with three glide bombs, huge half-ton explosives that punched large holes in the earth.

Another boat arrived and took away another five wounded. Maksym had to wait another 40 minutes for the next boat.

“The Left Bank was like purgatory,” he said. “You’re not dead yet, but you don’t feel alive.”

Of the 10 men in his platoon, half were dead or missing, he said. ‘None survived without injuries’

Bands of Ukrainian soldiers are fighting to regain territory on the eastern bank of the river The Dnipro Riveran area long controlled by Russia, have been bombed by Russian warplanes, attacked by Russian infantry and pursued by drones.

Yet Ukrainian forces, battered and outgunned, have managed to hold a handful of positions across the river for more than a month and are expanding their attacks on Russian forces there to target their vital supply lines.

The ultimate objectives of the Ukrainian campaign remain unclear: is it primarily aimed at unbalancing Russian forces – using limited attacks to force the Kremlin to move troops into the area, hoping to weaken weaknesses along other parts of the to create a front? Or does Ukraine have more ambitious goals, such as trying to launch a major assault across the rivers, aimed at taking back a significant portion of territory and dramatically reshaping a front line that has barely moved in a year?

Many Western military analysts have expressed skepticism about whether Ukraine can establish the kind of bridgehead that would allow its forces to move artillery and heavy armor across the river, which they would need to conduct large-scale offensive operations.

Still, the continued attacks could prove difficult for Russia, especially if Ukraine can interfere with critical Russian supply lines. Whatever Ukrainian intentions, the swampy wetlands along the Dnipro are simmering.

Here’s a brief look at how the fighting has unfolded, where things stand, and the risks and rewards as Ukraine attempts the most ambitious battlefield river crossing since World War II.

What happens on the battlefield?

Much of the current state of affairs is still shrouded in mystery and deliberately concealed by both sides.

But military analysts using geolocated battle footage confirmed last month that Ukrainian forces are holding several positions and engaged in clashes in a series of villages stretching from Oleshky, opposite the city of Kherson, to Korsunka, a town about 30 miles (48 kilometers) upriver.

The commander of a Ukrainian special unit fighting on the eastern bank said his soldiers made their first forays across the river in August.

The end of OctoberUkrainian Marines joined the battle, and in mid-November the Marines announced that they held several beachheads. It was at this point that President Volodymyr Zelensky first mentioned the operation.

As Ukrainian attacks across the river intensified, so did Russia’s response.

In late October, Russian warplanes began blanketing the area with 500- and 1,000-pound bombs and using TOS-1A thermobaric artillery systems, which suck oxygen from the surrounding air, with devastating results, according to soldiers and battle footage.

Why is Ukraine opening this front?

By attacking Russian forces on the eastern bank of the river, Ukraine is forcing Russia to move troops from other parts of the front, according to Russian military bloggers. the Ukrainian army, British Military Intelligence And military analysts.

But the fighting is taking a heavy toll on Ukrainian forces, with soldiers being released battle images of fierce fighting and harsh living conditions.

Ukraine appears willing to risk exposing some of its best fighters to such an uncertain and difficult fight because the rewards of a successful operation could be transformative.

If Ukraine manages to establish lasting positions across the river, its forces would be within 50 kilometers of Crimea – creating a vital transit hub on the peninsula within range of Ukrainian artillery, expanding the geography of the battlefield is being reshaped and it becomes even more difficult for Moscow. to bring food, fuel and ammunition to tens of thousands of soldiers during the winter.

Yevhen Dykyi, the former commander of the Ukrainian Aidar battalion, said Ukrainian forces were “connecting” a crucial highway connecting Crimea to Melitopol, a vital artery in Russia’s supply chain.

“The next task is more difficult,” he said on Ukrainian television last week. “In particular, to expand this position, break through Russian defenses and gain operational space.”

How has Russia responded?

A choir of prominent figures Russian military bloggers have criticized Russian commanders for not taking the threat from Ukraine seriously enough.

As reports of increased Ukrainian activity increased in October, the Kremlin replaced the commander in the area, Colonel General Oleg Makarevich, with Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky, who had previously served as head of Russia’s elite airborne forces.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in a report last month that the Russian military “will likely struggle to redeploy combat-effective fortifications” to the area, while also engaging in defensive operations in the region Zaporizhia. the northwest, and continuing other offensive efforts in eastern Ukraine.

The Kremlin’s main response has been to use its air dominance to bomb the areas where it believes the Ukrainians have a foothold, hoping that the devastating bombardments will drive them out. Recently released Russian and Ukrainian drone footage shows once peaceful riverside villages now razed to the ground, without a single building standing.

Several prominent Russian military bloggers have done so reported mid-level command problems with Russian soldiers to post videos complaining about being ordered to go on suicide missions while living in difficult conditions.

What can happen next?

To extend their tenuous hold on the eastern bank of the Dnipro, the Ukrainians must find reliable ways to get supplies and reinforcements across the river – no easy task.

“A river crossing under fire is one of the most difficult operations in land war,” said John D. Hosler, professor of military history at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. “Imagine an hourglass, in which sand flows from one large container through a narrow channel to another: river crossings are the horizontal expression of that.”

Soldiers and equipment are vulnerable at every stage of the operation: as they gather to prepare for the crossing, as they move across the ‘wet gap’, and again on the other side.

While the Dnipro River narrows as it passes the port city of Kherson, and Ukraine has combat-tested engineering units – and bridging equipment designed for the task – it would be difficult to move large amounts of material across the river without being noticed.

The widespread use of drones has made an already treacherous business even deadlier. Once across the river, the swampy plains on the eastern bank provide little natural cover.

In addition to the possible operational benefits for Ukraine that could accrue from expanding the area under its control along the river, a successful crossing would also likely be a major boost to morale, especially after a year of toil and bloodshed, but little progress on the ground .

But a failed campaign would mean losing more of the country’s best soldiers.

No modern army has attempted anything of this magnitude under these conditions since World War II, and historians said it might be better to look further back for an analogy: George Washington led his soldiers through Delaware in December 1776 .

“Washington’s boldness was ultimately worth the risk: it not only won him a victory in Trenton, but also boosted the morale of his own beleaguered forces,” Mr. Hosler said. That war would continue until 1783, but victory on the battlefield gave the struggling Continental Army something it desperately needed at the time: hope.

Anna Lukinova reporting contributed.

Finland said on Tuesday it has temporarily closed its only remaining open border crossing with Russia to stem the influx of asylum seekers. The country accuses Moscow of orchestrating retaliation for Finland’s decision to join NATO.

Finnish authorities have been raising the alarm for weeks about an increasing number of migrants entering the country to seek asylum. They describe this as an attempt by the Kremlin to sow discord. They had already closed seven of the eight crossings along Finland’s vast border with Russia, leaving only the Raja-Jooseppi checkpoint in hard-to-reach northern Lapland, above the Arctic Circle, open to travelers.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Raja-Jooseppi would also close for two weeks at midnight on Wednesday to help the government get to grips with a situation he said threatened Finland’s national security. Asylum applications will be limited to airports and seaports.

“The government’s goal is for the exceptional situation on Finland’s eastern border to be normalized as quickly as possible,” he said at a news conference. “The activity we are witnessing at the Finnish border must end.”

The message to migrants, Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said at the press conference, “is not to come – the border is closed.”

The dispute comes two years after Belarus, Russia’s close ally, granted short-term visas to thousands of people from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, arriving on one-way plane tickets and then taking them to the NATO-European Union border with Poland. sent. Union member who strongly opposed migration from those countries.

There was no immediate response from Moscow to Finland’s move, underscoring how sharply relations between the two neighbors have deteriorated since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

Finland shares a border of 1,300 kilometers with Russia and has a combative history. Its neighboring countries have fought numerous wars over the centuries, and Finland was ruled by Russia for over a century before gaining independence in 1917. The Finns have strong memories of the 1939 ‘Winter War’ and the Second World War, when their country fought against the Soviet Union. Union and lost territory.

After the war, Finland adopted a form of neutrality, bowing to the Soviet threat, and remained outside the Atlantic alliance for more than seventy years. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raised fears in Finland, a country of some 5.6 million people, that it could become one of Moscow’s next targets.

Finland and Sweden have cast aside the tradition of non-alignment and moved quickly to join NATO, a move Russia described as “clearly hostile.” Finnish authorities have said they were prepared for “trouble” from Russia in response, pointing to the influx of migrants crossing the border as one manifestation of that.

Finland has accused Russia of encouraging and helping asylum seekers – who border authorities say are largely from the Middle East and Africa – to reach the border even though they did not have the correct documents. About 900 people arrived in November, a sharp increase from previous months The Finnish national broadcaster Yle.

But “it is not just a matter of numbers, but of a phenomenon,” Orpo said at the press conference on Tuesday. “It is a hybrid operation by Russia, and we do not accept that.”

Maria V. Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, has called the allegations “unfounded” and dismissed them as “misinformation.”

Frontex, the European Union’s border and coast guard agency, said last week it would deploy 50 officers and other staff, along with equipment such as patrol cars, to boost security at Finland’s border crossings. It called the security of Finland’s eastern border “a matter of collective European interest.”

Finland is a member of the European Union and part of a Europe of 26 countries where people can travel freely from country to country without border controls.

On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg accused Russia of “using migration as a tool” in what he called an “attempt to put pressure on neighbors and allies.”

“They will not succeed because we stand together and support each other,” he said at a press conference in Brussels.

Cassandra Vinograd And Lara Jakes reporting contributed.