NATO really disappoints me: I expected more,' says one soldier (Anatolii Stepanov/AFP)

From their boltholes in the trenches on the frontlines of Ukraine’s battle to resist the Russian forces, Kyiv’s troops expressed frustration that they could not join NATO immediately.

“Who else is going to fight here? No one!” said one.

They argue that they are all that stands between the Russian aggressors and the rest of Europe.

In a room of a small house in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, a soldier monitored half a dozen screens showing images relayed by drones.

Major Vladislav, deputy commander of an infantry battalion, searched the landscapes flickering on the screens for the slightest hint of Russian troop movement.

Through an audio link, he liaised with the drone operators hiding out in shelters just a few kilometres away.

Even on the frontline, the officer followed the latest developments from Tuesday and Wednesday’s NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. It was “crucial, important for Ukraine and for Europe” that the alliance admit his country, he said.

“For the moment, they deliver us NATO weapons,” said the soldier, who goes by the nom-de-guerre Oscar.

“On the other hand, we are already acting as NATO’s shield,” so NATO membership would simply be official acknowledgment of that role, he argued.

“The more of our Ukrainian soil we lose, the more the Russians get closer to the borders of Europe.”

At the end of the NATO summit Ukraine came away with a pledge of long-term military support — but without a fast-track to membership of the alliance.

– ‘NATO disappoints me’ –

From a deep covered trench, part of a network of trenches near the front line, several drone pilots concentrated as they operated the aerial vehicles above.

One of them, trainee pilot Gummi, 28, was bitter about the outcome of the summit.

“Ukraine will be accepted into NATO — but not now. It will only be after the end of the war,” he said.

“If a NATO country is attacked, it is considered as an attack against another country,” he added, referring to Article 5 of the NATO treaty stating an attack against one member is an attack against them all.

“Who will come and fight here? Nobody. We are doing it all with our own hands,” he said.

“We expect our allies to express their sympathy and their concern, and they say: ‘We will help you and will do everything we can to ensure Ukraine wins… but you have to do it yourself’,” he said.

Iaroslav, 23, sitting beside him, was just as frustrated.

“NATO really disappoints me,” he said. “I expected more — more weapons to be supplied: tanks, aviation, long-range systems, missiles.”

Ukraine’s forces may be counter-attacking he argued, but if they had enough weapons, the offensive would go much quicker, saving lives in the process.

Gummi said the war would go on “until we put (the Russians) out of action with our own hands, our own human resources”.

“I don’t know how long that will take,” he added, “because there won’t be an eternal supply of weapons, either”.