Small Ukraine hilltop town may be Russia's next target
KYIV, UKRAINE >> Russian forces have razed dozens of towns and cities in Ukraine over the past 26 months — killing thousands of civilians, forcing millions from their homes and leaving a trail of destruction that is impossible to calculate.
Sievierodonetsk. Bakhmut. Avdiivka. Cities and towns little known to the world have become the scorched-earth battlegrounds where two armies clashed for months to bloody effect before the Russians finally prevailed.
Now Russian forces have set their sight on Chasiv Yar, a hilltop fortress town in eastern Ukraine. The campaign is part of an intense effort by Russia to achieve what could be its most operationally significant advance since the first summer of the war in 2022.
Chasiv Yar covers only about 5 square miles, but if the Russians can seize it they will control commanding heights that will allow them to directly target the main agglomeration of cities still under Kyiv’s control in the Donetsk region. That includes the headquarters of the Ukrainian eastern command in Kramatorsk.
It would also put Russian troops within around 10 miles of Kostiantynivka, the main supply juncture for Ukrainian forces across much of the eastern front.
Chasiv Yar is the “key” that “will open the gate for exhaustive and long-lasting battles,” said Serhiy Hrabsky, a military analyst who is a former colonel in the Ukrainian army.
While Ukraine hopes renewed military assistance from the United States will allow it to start stabilizing fraying defensive lines, its soldiers are desperately short of just about everything — from artillery shells and tank rounds to air defenses and armored vehicles.
It could take weeks for significant flows of matériel to change the dynamic on the front, and Ukrainian officials have warned that the Kremlin will try to exploit this window of opportunity to target Ukrainian defenses wherever it can.
Just this week, Russian forces exploited a gap in Ukrainian defenses outside Avdiivka to advanced about 2 miles on the village of Ocheretyne, which is 30 miles south of Chasiv Yar, according to the Ukrainian military.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he believed that Russia was planning to capture Chasiv Yar by May 9 — a national holiday in Russia commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
As Russia targets Chasiv Yar, here is a look at how the battle is unfolding, where the fighting stands and why the loss of the town would present new challenges for Ukraine.
What is the situation in Chasiv Yar?
During a visit to Chasiv Yar a year ago, as the battle for Bakhmut reached its bloody denouement just 6 miles to the east, it was clear the once-bucolic town in the heart of the eastern Donbas region had already been largely transformed into a military garrison.
Most of the about 13,000 residents had fled as shelling rattled largely empty apartment buildings and craters dotted the treelined roads.
After Bakhmut fell to Russia, Ukraine used Chasiv Yar to direct fire at Russian forces from across the open plains that surrounded it.
They also used the town as a staging point for assaults aimed at reclaiming some villages around Bakhmut.
But as U.S. assistance slowed and then largely stopped this year, the Russians took back much of what they lost around Bakhmut and began to push across the mined plains between Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar in one bloody assault after another.