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Grenades — a standard but often unglamorous part of modern infantry combat — have become indispensable in Ukraine’s close-quarters and grueling fight against Russia’s invasion.

The war blends advanced technologies like drones and electronic warfare with grinding, World War I-style fighting, where soldiers sometimes battle at arm’s length in muddy trenches and bunkers. In those confined spaces, Ukrainian and Russian troops alike rely heavily on grenades.

Western officials and war veterans in Ukraine told Business Insider about the important role they play in Ukraine’s trench warfare. Their use has also evolved, with grenades increasingly getting tactical upgrades, including adaptations for drone drops and components made with 3D printing.

The experience has highlighted a lesson for Western militaries less accustomed to modern trench fighting, the kind of combat that drives enormous demand for basic infantry munitions like grenades.

A lifeline for soldiers

Ukraine’s battlefield is littered with trenches unlike anything the West has seen for decades, with soldiers needing hides and defenses from the attack and surveillance drones that fly overhead, and the brutal fighting involves defending and taking these earthworks from the enemy.

A US veteran who fought in Ukraine and spoke with Business Insider on the condition of anonymity said that “when you go through these trenches, hand grenades are your best fucking friends.”

He said the fights are so close-quarters that in some engagements with the Russians, “you could literally touch them with the muzzle of your rifle at times.”

Trenches are messy, uneven, and difficult to capture. “You’re basically trying to take the home of another individual who’s lived there for days, weeks, months at this point,” the vet said. “So they know every nook and cranny; they know every turn.”

A British man who fought for Ukraine previously told Business Insider that he carried grenades for both assault and reconnaissance missions and described the US and UK-made grenades as “prized” among Ukrainians.

Lt. Col. Davidson, a leader in the UK-led training program for Ukrainian soldiers called Operation Interflex, told Business Insider last year on the condition that only his rank and last name be used that “Ukrainians have got a heavy use of grenades.” That usage was worked into the training in response.

There is a wide range of grenades in use in battle, everything from fragmentation and explosive to flashbang and chemical.

A Ukrainian officer recently told Business Insider that smoke grenades can help to create poor visibility so injured soldiers can be evacuated, though it can also risk drawing unwanted Russian attention.

Combat video footage shared by Ukrainian units often shows grenades in action, including footage of US volunteers using them in an assault on a Russian trench.

Scale, supply, and adaptation

Ukraine’s grenades come from multiple sources, from old Soviet-era stocks to those of partner nations.

A January 2025 Department of Defense update said the US had provided “more than 50,000 grenade launchers and small arms” and “more than 500,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades” to Ukraine. And the US isn’t the only supplier. The volume supplied reflects how central these weapons are to front-line combat. Ukraine also makes its own grenades.

It’s not alone, though. Russia is also heavily using these weapons, including in the booby traps it sets up in trenches and urban environments.

Ukraine feels it when it has shortages of grenades. Another US veteran told Business Insider on the condition of anonymity last year that, with US aid stalled and Ukraine suffering weaponry shortages, he was often told to be “careful practicing with grenades” so as not to waste too many.

And when it was time to swap positions, troops taking over would ask those departing to leave any remaining grenades and ammunition.

“That’s how desperate that situation got to where it’s like guys were literally getting ammo and grenades off of dudes leaving the area so that they could keep fighting.”

Grenades are still proving their worth

Grenades have long been a staple of infantry combat, including in the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Ukraine’s conflict has pushed their use to levels more typical of large-scale, attritional warfare, where trench systems stretch for miles and fighting drags on for months and years.

Western militaries did not anticipate the return of large-scale trench warfare, and in Ukraine that fighting has pushed grenades to the center of daily front-line combat.

Long a standard tool in close-quarters fighting, they have become especially prominent amid widespread trenches, ammunition shortages, and evolving tactics.

While they’re being used in close-quarters combat, grenades are also being dropped from drones in battles all along the front lines, hitting soldiers, bunkers, hideouts, and even vehicles.

A US Army Colonel said doing this has “proved dramatically effective” for Ukraine. The Army first tested dropping a live grenade from a drone this year. It’s catching up.

Ukrainian units and engineers are also 3D-printing parts to make old grenades work better with drones while printing plastic casings to fill with explosives to make custom grenades.

Worried about Russia sparking a wider war with Europe, much of the West is watching to see what lessons it can learn from Ukraine.

Maj. Maguire, a British military officer who led part of the Operation Interflex training and helped document lessons from Ukraine, told Business Insider that the scale and importance of grenade use in trench fighting have stood out. He spoke on the condition that only his rank and last name be used.

“There’s a massive demand for grenades,” he said.

The West is looking at trench warfare more, too, and rethinking how messy and dangerous trenches can be and the weapons needed for a fight.

Ukraine’s war has shown that even on a high-tech battlefield, sustained close combat in trenches still depends on basic infantry weapons and on having enough of them.