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Russian forces have reportedly entered the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, as exhausted and artillery-depleted Ukrainian troops struggle to hold defenses of the Donetsk region city.
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Dozens of Ukrainian drones, meanwhile, targeted sites in western Russian regions and elsewhere early on April 5, including an air base that’s home to a squadron of Sukhoi fighter bombers.
Unnamed Ukrainian intelligence officials told the Associated Press that more than a dozen Russian aircraft were destroyed or damaged, and as many as 20 Russian personnel were killed or wounded.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it downed 53 Ukrainian drones overnight, including one that was reported in the Saratov region, where the Engels air base is located. Video posted to Telegram and other social media overnight showed antiaircraft defenses firing into the night sky near another air base closer to the Ukrainian border. The videos could not be immediately verified.
The ministry made no mention of damaged or destroyed aircraft.
In the western Kursk region, at least four buildings were damaged by drones, but no casualties were reported, the regional governor reported in a post to Telegram.
Ukraine, which rarely comments on its targeting of Russian sites, said nothing publicly on the drone strikes.
However, Ukrainian intelligence officials told AP that the drone attack destroyed at least six Russian military aircraft and badly damaged eight others at the Morozovsk airfield, which is closer to the Ukrainian border and has been used by Russian bombers to fire guided aerial bombs.
Around 20 of the airfield’s personnel were killed or injured, said the officials who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
There was no independent corroboration of the claim; one prominent, closely watched Russian war blogger cast doubt on it. But, if true, the attack would be among Ukraine’s most successful cross-border strikes.
Elsewhere, Ukraine said Russia launched 13 drones overnight, at regions in southern Ukraine, but claimed all were shot down.
Russia also fired five ballistic missiles in the attack, Ukraine’s air force said in a statement to Telegram. Debris from one of the attacks in the southern Zaporizhzhya region damaged homes and farm buildings, but no casualties were reported.
Officials in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, reported new explosions early April 5, which damaged four cars and an apartment building, but no casualties were immediately reported.
Kharkiv has been pounded by Russian attacks in recent weeks, crippling the city’s power grid and stoking fear among residents.
Rescuers and municipal workers continued cleaning up wreckage from a Russian drone attack a day earlier that killed at least three emergency workers who had been responding to an earlier attack.
In his overnight address on April 4, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned the attack on the firefighters and emergency workers.
“A despicable and cynical attack, when the rescuers arrived at the scene of the strike, the terrorists attacked again,” Zelenskiy said on X, formerly Twitter.
On the battlefield, Russian forces have continued to make incremental gains, and were on the verge of entering Chasiv Yar, a small city that sits astride a major east-west rail link. Russian war bloggers said troops have entered the city’s outskirts as of April 5, a claim that could not be immediately verified.
Russian troops have been targeting Chasiv Yar after pushing west out of the industrial city of Avdiyivka, which they captured in mid-February after a costly, monthslong campaign.
Capturing Chasiv Yar, which is located on relatively high ground, would allow Russian forces to threaten another railway town, Kostyantynivka, and potentially threaten larger, more strategic cities further north, like Kramatorsk or Slovyansk.
Ukrainian forces have been rushing to build trench lines and fortify defenses to slow the Russian westward advances. Ukrainian and Western observers say Russian forces are suffering major losses of troops and equipment, but continue to grind down smaller, depleted Ukrainian units.
Ukrainian officials have not commented on the Russian claim that Russian troops were on the verge of entering Chasiv Yar, but commanders have said publicly that the fighting there is difficult. In its daily update on April 5, Ukraine’s general staff listed general fighting across the front line, but nothing specifically about Chasiv Yar.
Ukraine’s struggles with artillery and ammunition are caused by slowing Western weapons deliveries, mainly the result of political infighting in the United States, where congressional lawmakers have struggled to agree on a new $60 billion package of aid.
During an online briefing on April 3, Ukraine’s foreign minister called again for urgent deliveries of air defense systems, which he said were crucial in warding off the increase in attacks.
“The peculiarity of the current Russian attacks is the intensive use of ballistic missiles that can reach targets at extremely high speeds, leaving little time for people to take cover and causing significant destruction,” Dmytro Kuleba said.
“Patriot and other similar systems are defensive by definition. They are designed to protect lives, not take them,” he said.
Ukraine’s ground forces commander warned last week that Russia was building a group of over 100,000 soldiers in advance of what may be a major offensive this summer.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service and Reuters
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