Ukraine Faces 'Crucial' Battle for Chasiv Yar

The ongoing fighting around the eastern Ukrainian city of Chasiv Yar could prove one of the most pivotal battles of the war, as Moscow's forces push hard to make new gains before Ukrainian units can bring to bear a new glut of American military aid. The package was delayed for months by partisan maneuvering in Washington D.C.

Russian forces have continued offensive operations toward Chasiv Yar in recent days, per the latest Institute for the Study of War (ISW) battlefield update. The think tank wrote in March that its seizure "would offer Russian forces limited but not insignificant operational benefits if they could achieve it." Its latest battlefield map showed Russia's multipronged drive west and north of Bakhmut.

Chasiv Yar sits six miles west of Bakhmut, the destroyed city captured by Russian forces in May 2023 after a months-long and bloody attritional contest. This part of the eastern Donetsk region has been a hotspot for fighting since 2014, when Moscow seized Crimea and fomented separatist rebellion in Ukraine.

The city has been an important hub for Kyiv since 2014 and was home to an important military hospital and later the headquarters for the Joint Forces Operation against Russia and its local proxies.

Abandoned by almost all of its prewar residents, Chasiv Yar was a vital staging point for Ukrainian forces for the fighting defense of Bakhmut amid Russia's full-scale invasion from February 2022.

The city sits on a hill with commanding views over the surrounding area. Seizing it would offer Russian forces the opportunity to eject Ukrainian troops from a large salient to the south, and push Kyiv's units further from Russian supply and communication lines in the wider Bakhmut area.

It serves as a gateway to the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, both strategic objectives for Moscow's forces in their bid to capture all of the Donetsk region the Kremlin now claims.

"A Russian seizure of Chasiv Yar would be more operationally significant than the Russian seizure of Avdiivka," the ISW wrote, though added it "does not forecast that Russian forces will take Chasiv Yar rapidly if they can take it at all."

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.

Either way, the battle for the city could prove pivotal. Pro-Ukrainian analyst Radu Hossu wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that a Russian victory in Chasiv Yar may see Moscow exploit "a war-weary Western population and the internal political tensions of each European state" to build international pressure for an "unjust, unfair, morally disarming peace."

"The battle for Chasiv Yar is an essential, almost crucial piece in a potential domino [effect] that certainly none of us want," Hossu added.

Russian forces have repeatedly scored new territorial gains, despite being mauled through more than two years of war with casualties reported by U.S. officials to be up to 315,000 killed. Moscow is believed to now be setting up for a fresh summer offensive, perhaps intending to strike a blow hard enough to shake loose new peace talks with Kyiv.

Pavel Luzin, a Russian military analyst and visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, previously told Newsweek it is "hard to say" whether Russian troops will be able to scale up their current drive for a larger summer push. "There are not too many resources for a bigger offensive," Luzin said.

"What we do see is that Russia was trying to surround a significant group of the Ukrainian forces in Avdiivka, exactly like in Ilovaisk in August 2014 and in Debaltsevo in February 2015, but was incapable of doing this. Perhaps, Russia will make another attempt in the same way, because it needs stronger positions in order to get a break in the war."