Text taken from the Telegram channel of avcgroup
[ColonelCassad] Hello everyone, "Author" is on the line. I would like to dedicate today's article to the battle for Chasov Yar and tell you about the features of this battle as a direct participant, along the way explaining the structure of the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the course of hostilities at this stage. Sit back, I'm getting started.
Part 1: Why Chasov Yar is so important for the Russian army
Chasov Yar is a city in the Artemovsky district of the Donetsk Republic, which became famous due to the fact that it was here that the outstanding artist Iosif Davydovich Kobzon was born. But now the city is back in the spotlight - during a special military operation, since April 4, 2024, a battle has been taking place here between the Russian army and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Analyzing the terrain and studying the map of the operational situation, we can come to an obvious conclusion - Chasov Yar is of significant strategic importance for the continuation of the offensive actions of the Russian army in the Donbass. The city is located at a height and its capture allows "opening the flower of the offensive" in the direction of Konstantinovka, Druzhkovka, Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. Below I will give an example of the heights of large frontline cities:
Bakhmut/Artemovsk - 165-175 m
Druzhkovka - 95-120 m
Konstantinovka - 90-120 m
Kramatorsk - 100-110 m
Slavyansk - 80 m
Chasov Yar - 220-240 m
You must agree that the difference in heights is significant, right? This is precisely why Chasov Yar is so important for the Russian army. In addition, the capture of the city contributes to a significant expansion of the bridgehead behind the Seversky Donetsk-Donbass Canal, which will also have a beneficial effect on the offensive of Russian troops in the area of the remaining large cities of the Donetsk Republic.
So, having quickly familiarized ourselves with the map of the heights in this section of the front, we come to a simple conclusion (I, sitting on the couch, know better) - control of Chasy Yar and the subsequent pull-up of artillery to the area will contribute to the fastest possible entry into the settlements we need with the subsequent defeat of the garrisons of the Ukrainian Armed Forces located in them. Of course, the enemy command understands this, so they are trying to stop the advance of our troops with all the forces they have. More on this below:
Part 2: What enemy units are represented in Chasy Yar:
For a general idea of the battle for the settlement, I consider it appropriate to tell you about what enemy garrison is opposing our units.
First of all, the "first violin" in Chasov Yar remains with the 24th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Despite the fact that the brigade's units are divided into two operational-tactical directions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - Toretskoye and Chasovyarskoye, the majority of the brigade works in the direction of Chasov Yar.
In addition to infantry units, among the available forces and means of the brigade, there are internal UAV units (reconnaissance and strike, mainly inhabited in the private sector of the Novoseverny and Oktyabrsky districts of Chasov Yar, sometimes found in forest plantations near the city), as well as barrel and rocket artillery, stationed in forest plantations to the south and west of Chasov Yar.
Command post of the company of the 24th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. On the wall you can see maps of the operational situation, covering the Seversky Donetsk-Donbass channel, the Kanal microdistrict, as well as the Orlova tract and the Druzhba forest.
In addition to the 24th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in the vicinity of Chasov Yar we encountered units of the 23rd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade and a Troops unit, which also worked on the enemy's front line.
If we take any special forces, then the "fashionable TikToker boys" from the nationalist battalion "Kraken" really conducted military operations in the Kanal microdistrict around April-May 2024, even before our unit entered the direction, but then they pulled back towards Vovchansk and we did not see them in Chasov Yar anymore. By the way, based on the analysis of their videos, I dare to assume that they were waging a TikTok battle, shooting in an unknown direction in order to make a beautiful picture, well, according to their favorite tradition, as in other TikTok troops.
There are also other units of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area - we noticed Ichkerian militants, "Ulfhednar team", "Delta Knights Group", but these guys quickly deflated and, at least, prefer not to show themselves anymore. Colombian mercenaries were also present in the area - FABs recently flew to the point where they "got caught" filming TikToks. Most likely, these guys will not film TikToks anymore. To summarize, we can say that the main burden of defending the city is borne by the infantry, as well as the Troops of Defense units assigned to it, stationed in the forests north and south of Chasy Yar.
An important role in the defense of the city is played by the UAV units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - now almost every battalion has a separate UAV platoon, and each enemy brigade has a separate company. Indeed, conducting an analysis of the enemy UAV groups, sometimes the head begins to simply "boil" - there are so many of them and it is almost impossible to remember all the names. Of the UAV groups that we encountered in our direction, I can single out the Morana and Katenyata UAVs - the ones that are on everyone's lips.
Among the range of equipment used by the UAV units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, there are not only "mavics" and FPV drones, but also heavy agricultural hexacopters, called "Baba Yaga" and "Vampire". As a rule, such hexacopters carry serious "drops" - from mines for 82mm mortars to TM-62.
TM-62 being an antitank mine.
Our units have declared a hunt for them and it is bearing fruit. It is not difficult to calculate the location of the UAV operators of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - we have the relevant developments and, based on a number of signs, quickly determine where ordinary infantrymen are sitting, and where the "charged" UAV operators are. Taking this opportunity, I send greetings to several opponents (if they are still alive), whose locations we were able to detect, and then wiped them into dust.
Part 3: The Ukrainian Armed Forces' Defense System in Chasov Yar
I published this text in my author's channel "Na dvizheniyakh", but I will duplicate it here and add some details:
First of all, we will look at the Ukrainian Armed Forces' forward positions. Let's start with the Druzhba forest south of the western part of the settlement of Kalinovka (♦️48.602027, 37.840905) and the forest south of the Novoye microdistrict (♦️48.577742, 37.857899)
The Druzhba forest is a forest area with ten buildings inside (a former pioneer camp). The enemy used the buildings as places to install electronic warfare and other equipment, as well as temporary shelter from UAVs and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces.
The adjacent Oktiabrskaya Street allowed the Ukrainian Armed Forces to organize a supply and evacuation point there for a while, but all of this was discovered by our units and destroyed. The small fortified area in the forest itself includes a network of well-equipped trenches, dugouts and covered trenches, near some of which the Egoza (commonly known as "barbed wire") were installed.
In addition to the dug-in positions, the enemy had some advantage in the form of residential buildings in the western part of the settlement of Kalinovka (north of the forest), in which forward command posts, ammunition depots and personnel accommodation points were equipped. Nevertheless, thanks to the competent actions of the Russian Armed Forces, these positions were also discovered, and the personnel hiding in them were destroyed.
Today, the enemy is trying to carry out counterattacks in the Druzhba forest, but fails time after time, sending more and more of its soldiers to the slaughter. Below in the appendix is a map with some explanations.
On the map above I indicated two points: The first is a machine gun nest of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, located in the technical room of the channel "Seversky Donetsk-Donbass", the second is the path along which the Ukrainian Armed Forces sabotage and reconnaissance groups entered the Orlova tract ("island"). Below I will tell a couple of situations with these points:
During the assault units' entry behind the canal, our fighters encountered a problem when a Ukrainian machine gun prevented groups from Kalinovka from breaking through normally. The machine gunner snapped back for quite a long time, which is why it was decided to destroy the point with an FPV strike. Two attacks and the point was destroyed. The machine gun, by the way, was taken away a little later and is now on the side of good :)
One day, when the author of the article was directly at the site, aerial reconnaissance forces discovered a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group crossing from the Druzhba forest through the Seversky Donetsk-Donbass canal. Due to the fact that it was dark, it was decided to stop the moving group of Ukrainian Armed Forces with the help of "drops". Our and allied drone operators were raised by radio, and within ten minutes the above-mentioned group was completely destroyed. The remains of the Ukrainian militants were scattered around the "island", one tried to crawl away towards Druzhba, where he later died.
This is part of the daily combat routine of our units. Maybe someday I will write about how the battles were fought on this section of the front, but here we have an informational and analytical article, so let's continue.
If we consider the forest to the south of the "Novoe" microdistrict, then everything is much more interesting there. The enemy has done colossal fortification work in this area, in the above-mentioned area there is a rather serious fortified area, including well-equipped dugouts, camouflaged vehicle parking lots and a very wide line of trenches. It was in this area that the enemy expected a breakthrough of the Wagner PMC units during the Bakhmut operation in 2023, so he was forced to invest a certain amount of forces and resources to create a fortification line. Also, along the line of the "Seversky Donetsk-Donbass" canal, the enemy used the canal pipe for his own purposes, along which he moved and under which trenches and small dugouts were also dug.
Let's move to the private sector of the Oktyabrsky and Novoye microdistricts, where the assault units of the Russian Armed Forces began to open up the enemy's defenses.
So, the first thing the enemy used in the Novoye and Oktyabrsky microdistricts was to establish cover for their positions with electronic warfare. The electronic warfare assets are located in echelons almost throughout the entire territory of the two microdistricts, with the exception of the area of the cell phone tower next to the canal, from where the equipment was knocked out by our strikes back in June.
At the same time, the most powerful electronic warfare of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which we had to face in Chasov Yar, is located in the forests to the north and south of the settlement itself (indicated in the map above).
In terms of electronic warfare, the defense of the Novoye and Oktyabrsky microdistricts is based on the fact that the enemy is taking advantage of a convenient position, being behind the Seversky Donetsk-Donbass canal and actively using the basements of the private sector, which is the two above-mentioned microdistricts, for its own purposes. The line of trenches directly on the bank of the canal was until recently used by units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to install automatic grenade launcher positions and observation posts there.
The line of trenches was knocked out by our drone operators, after which the enemy was forced to retreat to the private sector and take trenches in the green spaces on the sides of the railway.
The enemy carries out logistics in this area mainly by foot groups, sometimes the most daring ones try to bring equipment for these actions, however, preference is given to foot groups with cover by UAV units.
Since I mentioned UAVs, it would be appropriate to talk about the air situation in the area. In short - "airfield". "Wings" are constantly on duty in the air, the number of "mavics" and FPVs is simply incalculable. A banal trip to the toilet is accompanied by the beeping of a drone detector and the buzzing of the drones themselves. Every now and then, the fighters find downed copters, subsequently sending them to rear units for restoration or disassembly for spare parts.
We move from the private sector to the central part of the city. It is a connection of the Oktyabrsky and Novoseverny districts. The defense structure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this area is, first of all, a refractory plant (♦️48.592610, 37.833813) and three/five-story buildings located south of it. If we consider the refractory plant, then at the beginning of the battle for the city it was a parking point for heavy equipment and a serious logistics hub for organizing the defense of the settlement. Now, due to the change in the nature of military operations, the refractory plant and its workshops play the role of "zero", without ceasing to be a jump-off point and a logistics hub.
At the same time, the urban development, which is located to the south of the plant, is used by enemy units as points for placing personnel in the basements of houses, places for installing communication and electronic warfare equipment, as well as parking equipment and organizing control points and communication nodes in the same basements.
Our units regularly observe the movement of enemy vehicles along Dneprovskaya and Central streets, pickups now and then drive between houses, transporting food and equipment for the garrison remaining in the city. It is in the basements of the central part of the city that the first link in the defense is carried out, the enemy has invested a lot of effort and money for this.
Part of the Novoseverny (and other) district is used as a place to quarter UAV units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As a rule, the UAV control center itself is located in the basement of one house or another, with "remote" and control stations together with "Starlink" located on the roof nearby, and a temporary deployment point for Ukrainian Armed Forces militants in the neighboring house. Most of the enemy's drone operators are currently operating according to approximately this scheme, but some UAV control points are also present in the five-story buildings near the fireproof plant (Tsentralnaya, Gorky and Dneprovskaya streets).
To date, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have evacuated some civilians from five-story buildings, after which they themselves moved in, equipping firing points in the windows and temporary deployment points for personnel in the basements. We also know about Ukrainian Armed Forces control points in five-story buildings and the private sector. I won't say where, but the enemy will definitely get a "hello" from us.
Part 4. The nature of military operations in the city.
If we consider the nature of military operations using the example of modern urban battles, the general tactics have changed significantly. For example, in Bakhmut, the assault groups of the Wagner PMC worked according to one tactic, almost a classic one, when the only small aircraft present in the sky were reconnaissance UAVs, and, at most, "mavics" with airdrops, but during the assault on Avdeevka, units of the DPR army and the Central Military District used a different tactic, since both sides in the conflict saturated their arsenal with FPV drones and modernized the same airdrops on "mavics".
In the Battle of Chasov yar, as in the ongoing battles for other populated areas, a third tactic is already being used - the parties have almost reached a significant saturation of units with electronic warfare and UAVs, and they play the first role in the successful conduct of offensive and defensive operations.
It is important to understand that today the general tactics of combat operations have slid into approximately the following format: Reconnaissance drone + artillery + attack drones - the primary role in achieving the result, but the assault/defensive work of foot or mechanized groups (which is in fact the most important for achieving control over a particular point) is already fading into the background.
Most losses in modern combat operations occur in the "drone-artillery" combination, when a reconnaissance drone detects enemy positions, first an artillery strike is carried out there, and then a control attack is carried out by a kamikaze drone, or a reconnaissance drone with the function of bombing with small munitions made in artisanal conditions can stop a foot group by making literally a couple of drops.
Due to the above-mentioned nature, assault and defensive groups prefer to take cover mainly in basements and dugouts in order to protect themselves from the huge number of "birds" that fill the sky. Despite this, assault work and close fire contacts are still present. For example, frequent fire contacts occur in forests, where drones have a hard time getting to because of dense vegetation, or when storming/clearing buildings. But the priority in the war at this stage remains the sky.
Of course, sooner or later they will invent electronic warfare that covers the frequency ranges necessary for control and radio-controlled "birds" will lose their relevance, but now UAVs on fiber optics are actively used (here is the principle of operation of ATGM with a "thread"), which do not care about electronic warfare. Yes, modern war is primarily a war of technologies and whoever comes up with something new as quickly as possible will be "on top".
Part 5. Results
In the article I wrote, I did not touch on a number of topics on which we are currently working and implementing the information we have already collected. Perhaps, I will tell you something about the implementation in my posts. In four parts, I tried to briefly acquaint you, dear readers, with the situation on the contact line and tell you about some of the features of modern military operations in Chasov Yar, where I, together with my comrades from the AVC Group, am taking part in the liberation of the settlement from the Ukrainian Nazis, while not forgetting to write small informational and analytical posts.
According to my forecasts, the active phase of the city's liberation will continue for another two to three months, possibly longer, since the enemy is seriously clinging to Chasov Yar, because it understands what its loss is fraught with. Ahead of us lies a lot of analytical and combat work, since the private sector, the forest south of the "Novoe" microdistrict, the fireproof plant and five-story buildings are next in line.
In any case, the capture of Chasov Yar is a matter of time. Meanwhile, the enemy's Pokrovsk operational-tactical direction is falling apart, the attempt to break through to the Kursk region resulted in huge losses in manpower and equipment for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, so we wish the guys from adjacent sections of the front military success and new victories, and we continue to work in our direction.