Gingerbread mines and petrol-flavoured Snickers: how Mala Tokmachka became the centre of the universe for 48 days
"He who controls Mala Tokmachka controls the world," Otto von Bismarck once declared.
"I don't know where World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought in Mala Tokmachka," Albert Einstein warned.
"I conquered the Gallic tribes, subdued Gaul and defeated Pompey in the civil war, but I never made it to Mala Tokmachka," Julius Caesar lamented.
This eight-square-kilometre village in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, home to around 3,000 people before the full-scale war, has been the subject of memes, jokes and made-up quotes like those above for several months now. But behind the jokes lies a real story of resistance. Back in April this year, United24 calculated that Mala Tokmachka had already held out for 1,500 days – longer than Carthage during the Third Punic War or Leningrad during World War II.
Control of the village is tactically important for the defence of the city of Orikhiv, which in turn plays a crucial role in the defence of Zaporizhzhia.
The Russians have claimed in their reports to have "taken" Mala Tokmachka several times already. In November 2025, Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov even officially congratulated the troops on capturing the village. However, according to the latest DeepState battlefield monitoring data, the Russians have only managed to reach its south-eastern part.
In April 2026, soldiers from the 3rd Detachment of the 144th Special Operations Forces Centre were tasked with reinforcing troops from the 118th Separate Mechanised Brigade, who were holding the defence of Mala Tokmachka. For three weeks, the detachment cleared basements and houses and reached the eastern outskirts of the village, where the special forces set up observation posts. They left their positions at the end of May after spending 48 days there.
Mala Tokmachka is a symbol of Ukrainian resistance and at the same time an illustration of what war can look like today: all the work is carried out by small groups, and the main tactic is to advance a little, dig in, and avoid getting hit by a Russian drone.
Ukrainska Pravda invites our readers to immerse themselves in the 48-day defence of Mala Tokmachka alongside the soldiers of the 144th Special Operations Forces Centre.
"I didn't like the infiltration"
They had been told the operation would last two weeks, but Fizruk expected it to take at least a month. It wasn't as though he was a seasoned soldier – this was his first combat mission. But you didn't need to be a genius to anticipate the unpredictability of war.
The task was this: reach Mala Tokmachka, where Ground Forces troops were already holding positions, set up a patrol base and, when the weather allowed, clear the eastern part of the village of Russian troops and reach its outskirts.
The special forces split into two groups of five. They decided on a bold approach: nip in in two Kozak armoured vehicles, get out and immediately take cover.
It was mid-April. A dry, fresh spring night.
"Anyone in their right mind goes in when there's fog or rain, but we just went in on a clear night. I didn't like the infiltration," admits one of the group commanders, whose alias is Pravyi.
This is the same Pravyi who two years earlier was seriously wounded during an operation near Chasiv Yar, was taken prisoner by the Russians, and later captured the same Russian soldier who had taken him prisoner.
Of course you're unlikely to enjoy an infiltration when a Russian drone spots your group as you get out of your vehicle and starts to hunt you. Weapons in your hands, heavy bags on your backs – hardly the best conditions for racing against an FPV drone.
Still, Pravyi's group managed to reach cover.
The Russian drone exploded three metres away from a soldier who goes by the alias Mahon. He'll remember that moment for a long time: Mala Tokmachka was his first combat mission, and the attack was an entirely new experience.
"That's how, in the very first hour, I learnt what a combat mission is, what drones are and what war is," he reflects.
Fortunately, no one was hit. The soldiers managed to run into a basement. Just in time – seconds later another FPV exploded nearby.
Looking back on that day, Pravyi admits that it was lucky that the drones had focused on the first group. The men knew the route and quickly reached shelter, unlike the second group, who spent long minutes circling around, trying to find the entrance to the basement they needed.
Having realised that reinforcements had entered the village, the Russians began heavily shelling the position with artillery, mortars and drones.
"Thank God they weren't guided aerial bombs," Fizruk sighs. "The position was already torn apart as it was. If a guided bomb had hit it, that would've been really bad."
The Russians continued to fire on the area for roughly another week.
Mop-up
What does "mopping up" actually mean? Essentially, it involves checking houses, basements, sheds and other shelters where the enemy might be hiding. But what does that look like in practice?
Mala Tokmachka stretches from north-west to south-east, with two 7-km-long main streets and several smaller ones. A map of the village showing its buildings was divided into sectors, each one a different colour.
The soldiers went out on mop-up operations at dawn or dusk, when there was less chance of being spotted by drones. They moved in two pairs, with another two men following behind in case their brothers-in-arms needed assistance.
They advanced from ruin to ruin, basement to basement. Some entrances were blocked by rubble as though they had been blown up from inside. The soldiers tried to make as little noise as possible: if a Russian soldier was hiding somewhere, he must not know they were approaching.
The weather dictated their pace. When it was windy, they could cover about a kilometre. One day it poured with rain and the skies became safer than usual. That was when the clearing group made its greatest advance.
"Today we cleared the orange zone, tomorrow we'll get the red one done," recalls Lev, a special forces soldier. "One pair moved along one street, the other along another. We mopped up the green zone last. And gradually we made it all the way to the end."
They encountered no living Russian soldiers inside the buildings – only bodies. They also found large quantities of items capable of exploding: 50kg high-explosive aerial bombs, remnants of cluster munitions, drones, anti-tank mines…
Sector by sector, the soldiers reached the outskirts of Mala Tokmachka – four days ahead of plan. The next stage was to set up observation posts and take turns manning them.
During the day, they listened out for any signs of Russians approaching. At night, they tried to work out where the artillery fire was coming from.
"There weren't any major mood swings or anything like that. It was constant jokes and funny stories all the time. We played chess and cards," Lev says, describing everyday life in the shelter.
And from time to time they ventured out in search of food, because the supplies they had managed to bring with them to the position did not last long.
Gingerbread and Snickers
The first prianyky – traditional gingerbread-like biscuits – appeared in Kyivan Rus in the ninth century, when they were known as "honey bread". But when Mahon hears the word "prianyk", he doesn't think of a sweet treat with a centuries-old history. Instead, he assumes someone is talking about a new type of anti-personnel mine. The Pryanik (the Russian transliteration of the Russian-made mine) is half the size of a Lepestok ("petal") mine, resembles a prianyk in appearance and comes in various colours. The Russians scatter these mines from drones.
"It's their innovation, so to speak. They're very difficult to spot. And if you're walking along a road and see one 'prianyk', you have no idea how many more are hidden in the grass. Because the bastards scatter 15 or 20 of them at a time. It's a very dangerous thing," Mahon explains.
Mahon and his brothers-in-arms once had to walk down a street littered with Pryanik mines to retrieve supplies. It was one of the moments from the operation that has stayed with him most vividly.
Here is what happened. For about two weeks, the men lived on whatever food could be delivered by UAV or whatever they could find in the village themselves. But it's hard to keep an entire group supplied by drone: a drone can't carry much, and some of what does reach the positions just smashes into the ground when dropped. The drone can't descend too low either, because of the risk of it becoming entangled in fibre-optic cable.
"Feeding ten people with a Nemesis [the UAV used to drop supplies to the soldiers – ed.] is extremely challenging," Pravyi says. "If we hadn't looted [gathered/found – ed.] a sack of tinned meat during that time, if the infantry hadn't shown us where we could get water for boiling, we'd have been screwed. And even then we were really hungry until the unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) showed up."
But the unmanned ground vehicle brought adventures of its own. About a kilometre short of its destination, it drove into a water-filled crater left by a mortar round and got stuck. So at around 02:00, Mahon and his brothers-in-arms donned anti-thermal-imaging cloaks and set off to unload it. That was when they had to manoeuvre between the Pryanik mines. No drones spotted them, and the soldiers returned to their shelter laden with useful supplies. Once freed, the UGV headed back in the opposite direction.
There was an almost comical incident with another UGV: it arrived at the position with its light still on.
"I don't know what kind of genius engineer designed a machine where you can't turn the light off. We're looking through the thermal imager and it's lit up like a Christmas tree – you can see it from miles away," says a soldier who goes by the alias Venom.
Venom generally takes a philosophical view of life. Asked about his role in the group, he says it's to do whatever the commander orders, whether the soldier likes it or not, despite his fear and regardless of his emotions. But when recounting the story of the UGV that gave away its own position, even Venom struggles to remain stoical.
A Russian drone spotted the UGV, but it didn't attack immediately. It loitered, waiting to see whether any of the soldiers would come out to unload it. Only after realising that nobody was going to emerge and the battery was running down did it strike.
The first hit disabled the UGV, but much of its cargo remained intact. And it was real treasure: tinned meat, sugar, coffee, cereals, petrol for the generator, cigarettes and chocolate.
But in situations like this, the Russians try to destroy the entire delivery, knowing how important it is to the soldiers in their shelters. If the weather prevents them from finishing it off with drones, they use mortar fire instead. So they didn't stop at a single attack. After all the strikes, all that was left of the cargo were three packets of cigarettes, a few Snickers bars, and a couple of packets of porridge.
The surviving chocolate tasted of smoke and petrol, but they ate it anyway.
"It's fine. Tastes good," Mahon says, squinting.
Listening to him, you realise that perhaps nowhere do you learn to appreciate the taste of ordinary things quite as much as you do on the front line.
It was in Mala Tokmachka, while savouring bread from one of the deliveries, that Mahon remembered – and understood for the first time – something his grandad used to say: bread is the staff of life. He had never eaten anything so delicious. Soldiers normally have rusks or crispbread dropped to them – they are lighter and more compact and keep for a long time. So when an actual loaf of bread makes it all the way to a position, it's a cause for celebration.
***
Was the Special Operations Forces' mission in Mala Tokmachka a success? Absolutely, the special forces soldiers say. And not merely because they completed their task four days ahead of plan. Most importantly, they suffered no casualties either entering or leaving the positions.
Several attempts were made to evacuate the soldiers by vehicle, but the weather would not permit it. So they left on foot, in two groups of five. Even within each group they split up: three men set off first, followed by another two 15 minutes later.
The first group took 14 hours to reach the evacuation point. They crossed the village in grey, overcast conditions, but spotted a cluster of drones along the way and had to hide and wait. The other group set out a day later. They were luckier and made it in four hours.
When the conversation turns to Mala Tokmachka memes, the special forces soldiers recall that it felt oddly surreal. Not because the Russian army was claiming successes in the village while Ukrainian soldiers had it under full control – that part didn't surprise them.
What did surprise them was how much attention had suddenly become focused on a tiny village of which little more than the name remained. It was as though Mala Tokmachka were not simply one of many points along the front line, but, in a way, the centre of the universe.
For these soldiers, though, for 48 days it was exactly that.
One day, Lev – by then, perhaps, he will no longer be using his alias – would like to get into a car, sit his son beside him and bring him to a free Mala Tokmachka. He wants to show him the places where he and his brothers-in-arms sheltered and tell him the stories of what they went through.
And he wants to experience for himself what it feels like to walk down the main street without running from cover to cover, without hiding in bushes. Not to be scanning the sky, listening for the buzz of a drone. Just to walk with his son, look around – the scenery there is beautiful, Lev says – and listen to the song of the wind.
Rustem Khalilov, Ukrainska Pravda
With a serviceman from the 144th Special Operations Forces Centre with the alias Producer
Translated by Myroslava Zavadska
Edited by Teresa Pearce