'Now it's no mercy,' Ukrainian soldiers vow, as a showdown with Russian forces nears

IRPIN, Ukraine — Jackson is a singer. So, even though he was standing in a trench in this suburb northwest of Kyiv, even though a massive column of Russian soldiers and weaponry lay just a mile or so up the main road, it didn't take much prompting from his friends in his Ukrainian army unit to goad him into song.

He laughed, leaned back, looked away for a moment and — just when it seemed he wasn't going to do anything at all — launched into a creditable rendition of Nina Simone's "Feeling Good":

Birds flying high, you know how I feel

Sun in the sky, you know how I feel

Jackson's voice rolled through the "-ow" in "know" with a guttural tinge. His fellow fighters cheered him on, right up to where the brass blast was supposed to sound. That's when, as if on cue, the whistle-pause-boom of incoming mortars and artillery cut in.

The men ducked into the trench, hands scrabbling at the soil as they pressed themselves into the side. A beat later, one of them gave the