Hundreds of kilometers from home, out in the cold, tasked to defend their country's purpose, and on the look out.
At the same time, they hope to live to see the next day, if not the next minute.
Soldiers at war are in for difficult situation, just like what they've been trained and disciplined for. They have to prepare for the worst.
The thing is, soldiers are humans, and they know when they're expendables.
In Ukraine, during Russia's invasion to Ukraine, Russian soldiers spilled their hearts out, because they don't really know what the purpose of what they've been told to do.
A video circulated and went viral on social media, Russian soldiers are seen complaining that they are being forced to live in icy trenches in freezing temperatures.
In the video, the Russian soldiers are shown standing in an ice- and frost-covered trench.
"January 10, 2023, 392nd Motorized Rifle Regiment, 3rd Battalion, 10th Company," the cameraman said in the video, introducing his unit.
He panned the camera to show his fellow soldiers, also standing in the trench, saying that the temperature in Ukraine was -20° Celsius.
He added, "Guys, it's just our company will lie down here, without having a chance to meet the enemy."
"And we are offered to live here in the ice," the soldiers said.
"They do not give us the opportunity to receive medical care and access to provisions until we move to these positions," the soldier said.
Responding to the viral video, wife of one of the soldiers spoke that the troops have been blackmailed by their commanders into fighting, and that they were sent to the front lines as "punishment" for telling the truth.
"The indignant guys, including my husband, were summoned yesterday to talk with the colonel. Under this pretext, they were taken away in an unknown direction. Today I received information that they are already at the front lines. This is our punishment for the truth," she said.
The woman, along with other wives of the soldiers of the troops, wrote to the military prosecutor's office about the issue, according to reports.
They try appealing to the Russian military prosecutor's office, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and President Vladimir Putin himself to take action.
Vladimir Putin's forces have been preparing for a harsh struggle this winter after experiencing a string of military setbacks in the war, which began in February.
The thing is, rations and other essentials don't come easy in the battlefield.
And in the middle of freezing temperature, the war becomes increasingly harder for the troops at the front line.
And this unit, was mobilized and formed in Russia's Krasnodar region.
The soldiers had reportedly been at the front lines for 20 days prior to recording the video, and many of them already felt ill and unable to even make a fire.
The Russian soldier filming the video said his unit believes their treatment "undermines the combat capability of our army."
"Minus 20 degrees of frost. The guys here will simply freeze, get sick [...] who will fight at all? We will not even have time to fight with anyone," the soldier said. "Initially, when we arrived here in the zone of the special military operation we were told that we could come to the prepared positions, and that's how these positions are prepared."
"The command reports that the funds are over. Moreover, they are not shy in expressions and tell us in our faces that the money was simply stolen. And now they want us to move here," the Russian soldier said.
"We dug everything ourselves, shovels—all our own, nothing was provided to us. Periodically, there are problems with water, provision supplies."
"The command is not embarrassed in expressions, they are simply blackmailing us. We ask you to make this public so that the media, public pay attention to it and the corresponding security structures."
Further reading: Russia 'Sexualizes Ukraine War' By Creating Online Recruitment Video With Attractive Young Women