Under an onslaught of Russian troops and drones, Ukraine’s troops say they are ‘screwed’ without US weapons

Askold Krushelnycky travels from Kramatorsk to Chasiv Yar on Ukraine’s eastern front, and hears from soldiers who say they cannot hold on much longer as they are running out of ammunition – even if their own drone attacks are so far keeping the waves of assault at bay

Ukrainian troops in Donetsk near the front line (AFP via Getty)

There is one key thing you notice during a journey by car from Kramatorsk, one of the two major cities in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region that are still in Kyiv’s hands, to Chasiv Yar, about 25 miles eastwards. It is the fact that the road runs through a landscape that, if captured by the Russians, would allow their artillery to pummel at will huge expanses of territory and enable a rapid advance further into Ukraine’s territory.

Kramatorsk, like every Ukrainian city, is within range of Moscow’s missiles. It has frequently been hit by Russian artillery, which has killed hundreds of its civilians. Soldiers say Russia is conducting a determined and bloody offensive aimed at capturing Chasiv Yar, to open the way to Kramatorsk and the other big remaining prize in Donetsk, Sloviansk.

With what the Ukrainians estimate is a 10-to-1 advantage in the number of artillery shells they possess, the Russians have continued their bombardment for weeks. Thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded storming Chasiv Yar’s defences. Unseasonably warm and dry weather has meant that Russian tanks and other armoured vehicles that would normally be expected to get bogged down and largely stay unused until May or June have instead been active, accompanying Russian infantry on their attacks.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said over the weekend that the situation is getting tougher and “more complicated”, and warned that time is running out for America to resume the supply of vital military equipment – blocked for six months by political infighting in the US Congress – if there is to be any hope of preventing a disastrous breakthrough by Kremlin forces, with Putin’s military concentrating its efforts to smash through Ukrainian defence lines in three directions: Chasiv Yar, Lyman, and Pokrovsk.

A Ukrainian CV-90 armoured vehicle pictured in March near the frontline town of Chasiv Yar (Reuters)

A lieutenant with the call sign “Romanovych”, from one of the brigades defending the front around Kramatorsk, says: “Everyone is depending on the Americans. If they can’t solve their political problems, we are screwed.” The speaker of the House of Representatives has said he is aiming for a vote to pass tens of billions of dollars in military funding by the end of the week.

Ukrainian analysts have speculated that the Russians want to capture Chasiv Yar by 9 May – Russia’s most important national holiday, which marks the Soviet victory over the Nazis in the Second World War. Chasiv Yar also sits astride two important roads: the route towards Kostiantynivka forks north to Kramatorsk, or continues westward to another critically important Ukrainian city, Dnipro.

Soldiers who have recently been involved in the fighting around Chasiv Yar warn that the lack of ammunition has made the situation on the front line dire.

One soldier, who does not want to be named, says that a Ukrainian stronghold in the village of Bohdanivka, northeast of Chasiv Yar, could fall at any time. “The Russians have been storming our positions there in big numbers and with armour. They’ve sometimes taken ground, but we’ve always managed to take it back. But we may not be able to continue doing that, and we have already prepared fallback defences in case we have to withdraw.”

Ukrainian troops are creating these defences using trenches, bunkers, thousands of concrete “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles, and razor wire stretching for miles in every direction. On the road into Chasiv Yar – itself just west of Bakhmut, the site of the most prolonged battle of the war so far – there are camouflaged lorries, pickup trucks and Humvees, either with .50 calibre machine guns mounted on them or fitted out as ambulances. The sound of explosions becomes ever louder. Many of the vehicles turn off before Chasiv Yar, and in the last few miles there are burnt-out vehicles on the side of the road, which is noticeably more chewed up.

‘Dragon’s teeth’ anti-tank fortifications near the town of Chasiv Yar (AFP via Getty)

A major from the same brigade as Romanovych, with the call sign “Myron”, speaking in Kramatorsk, says the Ukrainian forces are now chiefly dependent on drones. These have replaced artillery as their best defence against the constant human-wave “storm assaults” mounted by the Russians, who sometimes arrive on motorcycles or quad vehicles.

“That’s the only way we can stop the Russians attacking us at the moment,” he says. “The drones destroy Russian men and armoured vehicles. They can fly into their bunkers and trenches where they can’t hide, and they even chase and destroy their motorcycles and quad vehicles.”

He adds: “The assault groups come with armoured support. So far we have always managed to beat them back, and they lost an enormous amount of men. But there are so many more of them, and some of us get killed or wounded also. We cannot go on like that indefinitely.”

The lieutenant, Romanovych, says: “Without the drones, we might not be talking here with you in Kramatorsk. The Russians are also using drones against us massively. But they also have unlimited artillery ammunition, so just drones cannot be a permanent solution for us.”

Romanovych is clear about what Ukraine’s troops need. “Our guys still have the spirit and the morale, but you can’t fight a huge enemy – and they are much larger than us, with four times more men, potentially, and limitless weapons – on spirit alone,” he says. “Unless the Americans start supplying us again in the same quantities as before, to compensate for our smaller numbers with a qualitative advantage, I don’t know that we can hold the Russians back much longer.”