Kyiv has denied reports that Russian troops have reached the outskirts of Chasiv Yar while admitting that the battlefield situation near the front-line town is “very difficult.”
Located in the eastern Donetsk region, Chasiv Yar sits roughly 50 miles north of the town of Avdiivka, which fell to Russian forces in February.
“The situation there is very difficult,” Andriy Zadubinnyi, spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern military command, said on April 5.
Speaking to Reuters, he said that “fighting continues” near Chasiv Yar, but he insisted that Russian troops had not entered the town.
“Don’t believe the Russian reports,” Mr. Zadubinnyi said.
Earlier the same day, Igor Kimakovsky, a high-ranking official from the Moscow-recognized Donetsk People’s Republic, claimed that Russian forces had reached Chasiv Yar’s outskirts.
Speaking to Russia’s TASS news agency, he said Russian assault groups had entered Chasiv Yar from the east and had taken positions in residential parts of the town.
Last week, Mr. Kimakovsky claimed that Russian troops—supported by aircraft and artillery—had overrun several “strategically vital” positions near Chasiv Yar.
The advances had brought Ukrainian supply lines into the town well within range of Russian tank and artillery fire, he said.
The Epoch Times could not independently verify the claims made by either side.
However, on April 4, Serhii Chaus, the town’s Kyiv-appointed mayor, acknowledged that the current battlefield situation was the “most difficult” since Russia launched its invasion of eastern Ukraine more than two years ago.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have steadily advanced on Chasiv Yar from the strategic city of Bakhmut, which is located roughly 10 miles to the east.
A key transport hub in Donetsk, Bakhmut (Artyomovsk in Russian) fell to Moscow’s forces in the summer of 2023 after nine months of intense ground fighting.
The capture of Chasiv Yar would allow Russian forces to continue their incremental advances to both the north and west.
It would also bring Moscow one step closer to asserting control over the entire Russian-speaking Donbas region, one of its key objectives.
After holding controversial referendums in late 2022, Moscow effectively absorbed Donbas, along with two other regions, and now considers them Russian Federation territory.
Backed by its powerful Western allies, Kyiv has vowed to continue fighting until all lost regions are fully recovered.
On Brink of Collapse
In recent weeks, even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Western media have recognized Kyiv’s increasingly dire battlefield situation.In a recent interview, Mr. Zelenskyy warned that Ukrainian forces would have to retreat “in small steps” if Kyiv failed to obtain military aid pledged by the United States.
For months, a proposed $61 billion aid package for Ukraine has been held up in the U.S. Congress amid fierce partisan wrangling that shows little sign of ending soon.
“If there is no U.S. support, it means that we have no air defense, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-millimeter artillery rounds,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in a March 29 interview with The Washington Post.
“It means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps.
“We are trying to find some way not to retreat.”
In an April 3 article, Washington-based newspaper Politico warned that a “major battlefield upset” for Kyiv may be inevitable even if it obtains U.S. funding.
Titled “Ukraine Is at Great Risk of Its Front Lines Collapsing,” the article paints an uncharacteristically grim picture of Kyiv’s current front-line prospects.
Citing high-ranking Ukrainian military officers to support its claims, the article notes the “great risk of the front lines collapsing wherever Russian generals decide to focus their offensive.”
Because of Russian superiority in both munitions and manpower, Moscow’s forces will likely be able to “penetrate the front line and to crash it in some parts,” the article states.
One unnamed Ukrainian military source is quoted as saying: “There’s nothing that can help Ukraine now because there are no serious technologies able to compensate Ukraine for the large mass of troops Russia is likely to hurl at us.
“We don’t have those technologies, and the West doesn’t have them ... in sufficient numbers.”
On the afternoon of April 5, Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed that its forces had captured the village of Vodyane in Donetsk.
Kyiv has yet to comment on the defense ministry’s assertion, which The Epoch Times could not independently verify.
