Shadows and drones: the silent fighting in the trenches of Chasiv Yar

The reporter and journalist María Senovilla, a contributor to Atalayar, analysed from the field how they are responding in Chasiv Yar to the Russian attack, how the war is being experienced on the front line and what strategies they are using to deal with the Russian attacks. She also analyses Putin's threat to NATO with long-range missiles.

Maria, you've spent 24 hours in Chasiv Yar, in a cosy 2x2 basement. What is Chasiv Yar?  

Chasiv Yar, in a nutshell, is the zero line and the buffer where Ukrainian forces are holding back the Russian advance from Bakhmut in the direction of the rest of northern Donetsk, in the town of Bakhmut. It was there that the most terrible battle that has taken place since this full-scale war began was fought. 

Tens of thousands of people died there, Ukrainians but also Russians. And since it fell to Russia last May 2023, Ukraine has established its defences precisely at this point, around Chasiv Yar. Since then, a year and three months later, it has been holding back the advance of Russian troops who, if they manage to pass this water channel that serves as a natural barrier between Bajmut and Chasiv Yar, would head directly towards the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the two large cities that remain in the north of Donetsk, still under the control of the Kiev government, and would practically mean the loss of the entire Donbas for Ukraine. 

This town of Chasiv Yar is a small town just before Bajmut. Before the war, only 12,000 people lived there, it is not big. But the war strategy that Russia is implementing here I have not seen anywhere else on the front line. 

In Chasiv Yar, in addition to this Russian technique of softening up using artillery, which we saw in places like Avdivka and which we are now seeing in Pokrovsk as well. In Chasiv Yar it has not been enough, given the good defence of the Ukrainian forces, what they have been doing since April is that they have flooded the sky with drones. Surveillance drones and attack drones, with which they are launching explosives with great precision against Ukrainian positions. 

What has Ukraine done to counter this new strategy?  

What it has done is to bring in its drones, both reconnaissance and attack drones, to counter with the same weapons. So, I was embedded with one of these attack drone units, they are intelligence units, and the way they work and the way they are defending that position is impressive. I haven't seen anything like that anywhere else on the front line in Ukraine.

What is the process of getting into Chasiv Yar like?

To work in Chasiv Yar, to get in and out of the city of Chasiv Yar, you have to work at night and drive without lights. The highly specialised drivers carry infrared systems and a kind of binoculars with thermal detection. In the dead of night, entering through goat tracks, which are also completely bombed, with no lights, has a big impact. That moment of covering all those kilometres is curious because the driver is driving and the co-driver next to him is giving him indications with his thermal vision goggles of ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘careful’, ‘a pothole’, tremendous.   

As it is so complicated and the most dangerous part of entering Chasiv Yar, it has not been in the press for months. You can't imagine what it took to get this unit to take me. They go in and out only once a day, during the night, because they can't risk making this journey any more. They work in 24-hour shifts. That's why I spent 24 hours in that wonderful, cosy two-by-two basement.  

When they arrive, the teams are very small. There are two or three people maximum per team to minimise risk, because the more people there are, the easier it is for enemy drones to detect you. I arrived with a team of two people, by the way, one of them was a woman and she had no military experience before the war, so you can see what kind of dough the Ukrainians are made of. 

When you get there, you go into a basement, because the artillery duel can be heard night and day. The drones, both Ukrainian and enemy, carry thermal cameras, so they can see you even in the middle of the night.  

When they explain to you that during that 24-hour shift they do about 40 flights with their attack drones, that means they go out 40 times to arm, to put those explosives on the drones that they have modified so that they can hold the payload and so that they can be accurate in flight. They have to go out 40 times, set up the explosives and come back down. With this work, which is almost like bobbin lace work, with so few people, with such precision, with such long shifts of 24 hours, they are managing to contain the Russian troops.

The Russian infantry is already in the eastern part of the Chasiv Yar canal. Since April, the conditions have been terrible to work in because of the number of enemy drones that you have all the time flying above you, I insist, a year and three months. You can hear them, they are like giant mosquitoes, and, between cannon shots, you can hear perfectly well that there are not one, but several drones constantly over your head. That's how they work and that's how they're holding back, which to me has seemed like a titanic task, because the ratio is probably one Ukrainian for every 10 Russians in this part. 

Maria, a personal curiosity of physiological necessity: how do they eat, how do these people who are there in these 2x2 basements relieve themselves? 

We take food in supply rations, like the ones the Spanish army has, just like the Ukrainians. They have cans, they have a small cooker for heating and drinks.   

The truth is that they had everything very tidy. They had a rubbish bag there. Each shift takes away the waste that they have generated so that it doesn't accumulate. And, unfortunately, the toilet is outside the house behind some rubble. If you want to go to the toilet, you take a gamble. You go out and wait until you don't hear any drones nearby. They also have drone frequency detectors that tell you roughly how far away they are. Then, when the frequency detector tells you they're a bit far away, you run out and come back.

It's a first-hand experience of what war is like, because often if you're not in there you don't know what it's really like. What that kind of defence means and how they live, how they survive, what they feel and what they suffer, they suffer a lot. Then there is the fact that Putin is threatening NATO with long-range missiles that are then advancing into the Donbas and Kursk. 

Actually, Putin has already been at war with NATO for a very long time. With NATO and with all the countries in the West where we defend a democratic way of life where our freedoms are respected. Freedoms such as freedom of the press, for example, which do not exist in Russia. So, this is yet another attack he has launched. All this as Ukraine is crossing the so-called red lines, which is unbelievable. You have a country invaded and the aggressor has the luxury of telling you that you cannot cross these red lines. 

As Ukraine and the people I have already explained to you what kind of stuff they are made of cross these red lines, Putin makes new threats that he never seems to carry out. Zelensky said a couple of days ago that the fact that NATO gave the green light to bomb a part of Russia, which is in the Belgorod region, from where they are attacking Kharkov, was no longer effective. 

Russia had adapted and what it had done was to move its bases elsewhere. And what it needs to do to counter the points from which the attacks are launched is for NATO to allow it to use these long-range weapons at any of the points from which Russia launches the attacks and also without indicating the exact area so that they are really caught by surprise, forcing Russia to delay those positions from which they launch the attacks and really get fewer missiles to arrive, fewer massive attacks on Ukraine by delaying those bases, or the attacks that arrive on the radar for longer, to see where the missiles are coming from and try to neutralise them. It's really a defensive strategy rather than an offensive one if you look at it from that point of view.

I don't think Russia is going to do anything it hasn't already done, but, as always, every time NATO takes a step in the direction of unconditional support for Kiev, there is a response from the Russian government threatening nuclear weapons or declaring war on other countries.