25,000 Russian troops try to storm eastern Ukrainian town but US weapons aid expected soon

Russia has a force of 20,000-25,000 troops trying to storm the eastern Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar and surrounding villages, Ukraine’s military said yesterday, describing the situation in the area as difficult.

Ukraine has full control of Chasiv Yar, which lies on strategic high ground in the partially-occupied Donetsk region, but Kyiv’s top commander has said Russia wants to capture the town by May 9 when it marks Soviet Victory Day in World War Two.

“The situation around the town is difficult, however the situation is controllable… Our defenders are both receiving reinforcement and stabilising the line,” said Nazar Voloshyn, a spokesman for the eastern military command.

“It’s somewhere around 20,000-25,000 Russian servicemen trying to storm Chasiv Yar and the outskirts of settlements near it,” he said in televised comments on public broadcaster Suspilne.

The capture of Chasiv Yar would bring Russia closer to two strategically important cities under Ukrainian control, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Russia has already been inching forward, but long-delayed US military assistance is expected to reach Ukraine. This will relieve critical ammunition shortages in a matter of days following its expected final approval this week.

“It is difficult for our soldiers, but receiving the necessary assistance will even out the situation,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram.

The 240-metre television tower in Ukraine’s city of Kharkiv broke in half and fell to the ground on Monday, footage obtained by Reuters showed, after what local officials said was probably a Russian missile attack on television infrastructure.

The broadcasting signal was disrupted to Ukraine’s second largest city, which has been pounded by Russian missile and drone strikes in recent weeks.

“At the moment there are interruptions to the digital television signal,” regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said.

There were no casualties because workers were in shelters, he added.

Meanwhile, a Russian man was sentenced to five years’ forced labour yesterday for spreading “deliberately false information” about the army in a street interview with US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in which he talked about the war in Ukraine.

The sentence against Yuri Kokhovets, 39, was announced by the Moscow city courts service. RFE/RL journalists had approached him in July 2022 and asked him in a vox pop interview if he thought a detente between Russia and NATO countries was needed.

“Of course we need (a de-escalation), but it all depends on our government. It is our government that started it all… It is Russia who created all these problems,” Mer Kokhovets told RFE/RL. “I don’t see any problems with NATO, it is not planning to attack anyone”.

He also said that Russian forces had killed civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha “for no reason at all”.

Mr Kokhovets was first detained by authorities for alleged “hooliganism” in March last year and later charged under sweeping wartime censorship laws that Russia passed shortly after launching its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Since then, at least 19,855 people have been detained in Russia for expressing anti-war views, according to rights group OVD-Info.

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