A young officer hopes to turn the tide of war, as Ukraine fights to retake a key city

As Ukraine mounts its first major offensive against Russia, 29-year-old Col. Serhiy Shatalov leads a battalion of 600 men in some of the heaviest fighting. "This is war," he says. "You cannot predict nothing, absolutely nothing." (Brian Mann/NPR)

APOSTOLOVE, Ukraine — In a battered building surrounded by an iron fence and an overgrown garden, an aide offers tea while we wait to meet Col. Serhiy Shatalov. Just 29 years old, Shatalov leads the 98th Infantry Battalion, which is pushing south toward Russian-occupied Kherson, part of Ukraine's first major counteroffensive of the war.

His force is made up of roughly 600 men, many of them civilians just a few months ago. Shatalov, a stocky man with a couple days' growth beard and close-cropped black hair, is wearing simple combat fatigues.