Russia’s grinding advance in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region appears to be angling towards the city of Chasiv Yar, according to a senior Ukrainian commander, as Kyiv’s forces settle into an “active defense” posture after a disappointing 2023.
Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, wrote on Telegram on Wednesday that Russian units are continuing “intensive offensive operations” around the devastated Donetsk settlement of Bakhmut, captured by Russia in May 2023 and long a hot spot of fighting on the eastern front.
“In particular, in the Bakhmut direction, intense fighting continues near the settlement of Bohdanivka,” Syrskyi wrote, referring to a village on the northwestern outskirts of Bakhmut. “Also, the enemy is trying to advance in the direction of the city of Chasiv Yar.”
A map published by the pro-Kyiv Trukha Ukraine Telegram channel indicated the current direction of Russian pressure towards Chasiv Yar from the current front line just outside Bakhmut.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.
Chasiv Yar sits around six miles west of Bakhmut, with a pre-February 2022 population of around 12,250 people, around 1,500 of whom are believed to still be resident. Close to the fierce fighting throughout the full-scale Russian invasion, it has repeatedly been hit by Russian artillery and airstrikes.
The city has served as a regrouping position for Ukrainian units fighting around Bakhmut. Chasiv Yar has also become a key artillery position for Ukrainian gunners, firing into Bakhmut and its surrounds.
Kyiv’s forces have reportedly fortified the area’s hills in preparation for a possible Russian breakthrough. Moscow’s forces repeatedly attempted—unsuccessfully—to push through to the settlement in May 2023.
The city sits along the T0504 road, which connects Bakhmut to the E50 highway. That larger road runs all the way from the western Russian border through occupied Donetsk and across Ukraine, almost to the Polish border.
Kostya Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images
Syrskyi said Russian forces are also attacking in the Kupyan direction—at the border of mostly liberated Kharkiv Oblast and mostly occupied Luhansk Oblast—with an eye on the city of Kupyansk. Moscow’s units are regrouping in the Lyman direction following recent losses there, the commander added.
The Institute for the Study of War reported on Tuesday that Russian forces made “marginal confirmed advances” along the Svatove-Kreminna line in Luhansk Oblast, northwest and southwest of Bakhmut city, southwest of Donetsk City, and northwest of the fortified settlement of Avdiivka on Donetsk’s outskirts.
Russian troops are pushing forwards all along the 600-mile front, seeking to exploit fatigue among Ukrainian units after Kyiv’s 2023 counteroffensive ground to a halt in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk oblasts.
Kusti Salm, the permanent secretary at the Estonian Defense Ministry, told Newsweek in an interview last month that this year will be hard for Ukrainians.
“2024 will be difficult,” Salm said from Tallinn, around 120 miles from the border with Russia. “They need to assume the defensive; they need to grind it out.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.