'NOT A SINGLE PERSON IN HERE FLINCHED': ABC News' James Longman is in Chasiv Yar, a Ukrainian town in the firing line of Russian artillery where only 1,000 residents remain, hopeful for progress in the country's counteroffensive.
Mayor Serhiy Chaus speaks to ABC News’ foreign correspondent James Longman in Chasiv Yar on July 13, 2023.The boom of artillery fire is a constant refrain in the town of Chasiv Yar, just 10 miles from the city of Bakhmut and some of the fiercest fighting since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“For us, those are good sounds,” Chasiv Yar’s mayor, Serhiy Chaus, told ABC News. “Definitely [the counteroffensive] going to make the city safer. Because when they push them further away they have less weapons they can reach us with.”Residents -- many of whom say they have nowhere else to go -- hope the counteroffensive will make the town safer. Although they no longer flinch at the sound of the booms, they remain well within range of Russian artillery.
Chasiv Yar lies on higher ground up the road from Bakhmut, the city where Russian forces and the Wagner group lost tens of thousands of men and spent more than six months taking resources from Ukrainian forces. During the battle, President Zelenskyy and the military top brass resisted calls to abandon Bakhmut -- a city of more strategic than symbolic importance – as they sought to maximize Russian casualties there.
“There were a calm couple of days, but now it’s started again,” Andriy, a local community leader, told ABC News.
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