As the battle approaches, a Ukrainian city girds itself for survival
Day by day the sounds of war approach ever closer to Chasiv Yar, where a few hundred civilians insist on remaining.
Rain falls from gray skies during the first days of the Ukrainian spring, washing over Soviet-era monuments and the wrecked husks of shelled buildings in this city of some 12,000. Tanks and armored trucks rumble down the town’s main thoroughfare. In the distance rings automatic machine gun fire, interspersed by the explosive blasts of outgoing and incoming artillery fire — the spillover of the vicious cat-and-mouse urban battle between Ukrainian defenders and Russian shock troops taking place in the city of Bakhmut, a few miles away.
Throughout it all is Andrei, an avuncular administrator responsible for three villages adjacent to Chasiv Dar; he’s determined to keep working and deliver aid to the few hundred civilians who insist on remaining in the city.
From the war-wrecked remains of Chasiv Yar’s cultural palace — it still bears the props and background displays of last year’s Christmas celebrations — he distributes some 2,000 loaves of bread, bags of rice and pasta, wood, tarpaulin and other supplies. For days, word has filtered through of Russian forces making headway in their fight for Bakhmut; day by day the sounds of war approach ever closer to Chasiv Yar and its surrounding areas, even as Ukrainians dig trenches on its edge for new defensive lines. Yet Andrei seems unconcerned.
“Of course we understand the Russians are advancing,” he says, a sad, tired smile on his face.
“But the Ukrainian army tells us we should not worry, that they’re staying. So we’ll stay as well.”
Throughout it all is Andrei, an avuncular administrator responsible for three villages adjacent to Chasiv Dar; he’s determined to keep working and deliver aid to the few hundred civilians who insist on remaining in the city.
From the war-wrecked remains of Chasiv Yar’s cultural palace — it still bears the props and background displays of last year’s Christmas celebrations — he distributes some 2,000 loaves of bread, bags of rice and pasta, wood, tarpaulin and other supplies. For days, word has filtered through of Russian forces making headway in their fight for Bakhmut; day by day the sounds of war approach ever closer to Chasiv Yar and its surrounding areas, even as Ukrainians dig trenches on its edge for new defensive lines. Yet Andrei seems unconcerned.
“Of course we understand the Russians are advancing,” he says, a sad, tired smile on his face.
“But the Ukrainian army tells us we should not worry, that they’re staying. So we’ll stay as well.”
