Ruins and corpses under the whistle of shells: Russia prepares its next great siege in eastern Ukraine

Chasiv Yar has ceased to exist.

This Ukrainian municipality on the war front of Donetsk province continues to appear on maps, but most of the buildings and infrastructure have been destroyed.

The civilians who remain there do not exceed 300 people, according to military authorities, when the population before the conflict was 12,000.

Chasiv Yar is no longer a place where you can live, except for the thousands of soldiers hiding underground and defending it against what is expected to be the next major Russian offensive in the Donbas region, in the east of the country.

Every few minutes Russian artillery shells whistle over Chasiv Yar.

The exchange of fire does not stop.

In sight there are only military vehicles and soldiers entering and leaving the basements.

The hammering of the machine guns is also repeated, trying to shoot down the constant flight of the enemy drones.

Four kilometers from the town, last Saturday, an anti-aircraft battery welcomed

the

newcomer: one of its rockets traces a vertical ascent to shoot down an Orlan, according to a soldier present, the best Russian reconnaissance drone, which can fly at a maximum height of 5,000 meters.

The hum of the unmanned vehicles chills the blood of the soldiers of the 93rd Ukrainian Mechanized Brigade who are stationed on the second line of the front, four kilometers from Bakhmut, a city devastated after eight months of siege and occupied by Russian troops in May. of 2023.

On the horizon you can see the skeletons of residential buildings in neighboring Bakhmut.

Just ahead is the canal that brought water to the city of Donetsk before 2014, the year pro-Russian separatist forces took control of the provincial capital.

This was illegally annexed by Russia in 2022.

Beyond the canal stretch ghostly forests, torn apart by gunfire and mortars, and fields densely mined by the defending army.

Among the minefields, the canal and the Ukrainian defensive positions, corpses of abandoned Russian soldiers are identified.

A soldier from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade protects his position on the Chasiv Yar front, on February 18. Cristian Segura

Chasiv Yar is the Kremlin's next objective in Donetsk, having conquered Avdiivka last week.

Multiple indications point in this direction.

And the same siege tactic is repeated: just as in Avdiivka, the Russian artillery is relentlessly punishing, in a preliminary phase, the infrastructure of the municipality.

This is confirmed by Chuprin, the code name of an officer leading a squadron of the 93rd Brigade.

This soldier adds that there are no major infantry assaults taking place, but there are raids that are easily canceled by his men, according to his testimony.

The Institute for the Study of War, a reference center for analyzing the conflict in Ukraine, has warned since early February that the Russian army is testing the defenses of Chasiv Yar.

This assessment coincides with the message made public this February by the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleskandr Sirski: enemy troops are punishing the municipality's first line of defense with bomb drones, nullifying the operations of Ukrainian unmanned aircraft with electronic weapons and conducting assaults with small groups of soldiers supported by superior artillery fire.

Top-level military units such as the paratroopers of the Russian 331st Airborne Regiment lead the strategy of testing the defenses of Chasiv Yar on its northern flank, just three kilometers from the Donetsk water canal.

These same initial stages of the siege were replicated in Bakhmut, Avdiivka and are happening in the other most coveted objective at this time of Russian dominance in the war, the city of Kupiansk, in the province of Kharkiv.

Kupiansk and Chasiv Yar have in common a high orographic situation that gives them an important defensive advantage.

Whoever controls them has a stronghold suitable for dominating the territory.

“We are convinced that we will resist, but if Chasiv Yar falls, the next one is Kostiantinivka,” admits Chuprin, referring to one of the three key cities of the Ukrainian rearguard in Donetsk — the others being Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk.

Kostiantinivka is the logistical hub between them.

The Russians want to make progress on the Donetsk front, but as a whole, preventing them from advancing more in one sector than in another, explains Chuprin.

The logic of this is to prevent your troops from being surrounded in the most advanced phalanx.

With the capture of Avdiivka, the invader has taken a leap forward and if Moscow wants to leave the front at the same level from north to south on the map, the next assault must be on Chasiv Yar.

Underground command

The dance that marks the artillery, that of fire from both sides, is always the same throughout the front.

At noon on Saturday, the howitzers of the 26th Ukrainian Artillery Brigade first fired from the vicinity of Chasiv Yar;

When they finished, they quickly left the place to avoid being located.

Shortly after, it was the turn of the Russian artillery, overwhelming the city with the whistling of their projectiles, followed by explosions and columns of black smoke, if they had hit their target.

Underground, in some basements of the town, one of the battalions of the 93rd Brigade has its command post.

There are six large screens.

In two you can observe, in real time, the movement in the Russian trenches in different sectors of the front;

In two others, the location at the time of friendly and enemy positions is reported;

Finally, dozens of phone user accounts appear on two other computer screens: they are the commanders at the front defense points.

If movement is detected on any screen, or if any position identifies the flight of drones, the affected battalion units are notified.

A Ukrainian armored infantry vehicle destroyed by Russian fire on the Chasiv Yar front last Saturday.Cristian Segura

Live images of the zero front line are taken by Mavic drones, usually for commercial use, which are located no more than 100 meters high.

Ukraine also has drones that fly thousands of meters high, but in smaller numbers than the enemy.

Russia has turned the drone war upside down, especially with the use of the Orlan and the Lancet bomb devices.

Dmitro, a soldier stationed in the Donetsk canal, certifies that it is difficult to stay outside the bunkers for a long time without being spotted by Russian aircraft.

“Another change from two months ago is that they are using a lot more artillery.”

General Oleksander Tarnaski, commander of the Avdiivka front, assured last week that Russia has 10 times more missiles than its troops, in addition to superior numbers of combatants.

In Chasiv Yar there is a feeling of waiting, that in the coming months another critical moment of the war will arrive.

Many soldiers wait underground or in trench bunkers.

A radio message warns of the takeoff of a Russian bomb drone towards the position where the EL PAÍS envoy is located.

A Humvee, an American armored infantry vehicle, picks up the group and leaves the area at full speed.

The high command of this sector of the front is considering closing media access to Chasiv Yar in the coming weeks, according to a military officer informed of the situation.

It would be one more sign, as happened in Bakhmut or Avdiivka, that his generals are preparing for a new battle to the limit.

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