Before the Ukrainian counteroffensive commenced, the important city of Bakhmut fell to the Russians. I wrote at the time that it seemed the Russians would also aim to take the town of Chasiv Yar but that didn’t happen because the war shifted to the south and the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Meanwhile, a month later, the so-called hero of Bakhmut, Yevgeny Prigozhin and some of his Wagner forces, invaded Russia in what looked like an attempted coup d’etat but also may have been timed to help Ukraine’s large-scale counteroffensive.
Bakhmut’s capture and what happened in the Donbas shifted to the counteroffensive and the internal threat to Moscow. Russian forces did not move toward Chasiv Yar.
Chasiv Yar was extremely important during the battle for Bakhmut. It was the feeder for troops being sent into Bakhmut and for the rotation of soldiers fighting there.
It was the source of supply of ammunition, food and medical support for Ukraine’s army in the city. Chasiv Yar was also the command center not only for the Ukrainians but also for their Western military advisers.
That latter role is what has again become clear in the last week of March, as the Russians successfully bombed a six-story deep command bunker in Chasiv Yar on March 26.
According to the Russians, the bunker was hit by one or more Iskander missiles. The Iskander is a short-range ballistic missile that can operate at hypersonic speed (Mach 5.9). It has different types of warheads including bunker busters that weigh between 1,000 and 1,500 pounds.
Inside that command center were very senior NATO officers, some of whom were killed, according to Russian reports. One of them was Brigadier General Adam Marczak of the Polish army.
His biography states:
In 1994, Brigadier General Adam Marczak graduated from the Land Forces Military Academy in Wroclaw, Poland, and was assigned as Assault Platoon Leader to the 10th Air Assault Battalion, which is part of the 6th Air Assault Brigade based in Cracow.
In the course of the following years up to 2011, he held successive positions in the 6th Air Assault Brigade: Commander of the 2nd Assault Company, Operations Officer in S3 Section, of Section S2 Chief and Chief of Staff and Deputy Battalion Commander of the 16th Airborne Battalion. In 2011, he joined the Polish Special Operations Forces Command based in Cracow as Deputy Chief of the Exercise Division.
He was associated with this military unit until 2017 where he finally held the post of Chief of the Certification and Exercise Division. In 2017, he assumed command of the 25th Air Cavalry Brigade in Tomaszow Mazowiecki. From 2020 to 2021, Brigadier General Adam Marczak served as Chief of the Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Division at the Armed Forces General Command in Warsaw.
Since his appointment and assumption of office in 2021, he holds the position of Deputy Chief of Staff, Support & Enabling Euroscorps. In 2009, he served for six months as Deputy Airborne Battle Group Commander at ISAF in Afghanistan. He returned to Afghanistan for two years (between 2015 and 2017) as NATO Chief of Staff at the NATO Special Operations Component Command (NSOCC-A).
Poland reported his death, which the Polish Army said was due to “unexplained natural causes.”
Various Telegraph channels report that other NATO officers were either killed or wounded in the attack at Chasiv Yar. According to these accounts, some of the wounded were hastily evacuated to Poland. We don’t know the names, the ranks or the nationality of any of those killed or wounded other than Marczak.
Many analysts think that the Russians will soon take Chasiv Yar, even though it is heavily defended. Reports say that Russian forces are only a kilometer or two away from the town, although engaged in fierce fighting as Ukrainian forces try to push them back.
It is unusual for such high-ranking NATO military officers to be so close to the line of contact with the Russian army. The only reason for them being there is an act of desperation: deep concern that the Russians might successfully push through, endangering the entire second-tier defenses that Ukraine is trying to build to prevent the Russian army from driving toward the Dnieper, potentially splitting Ukraine’s forces and endangering Kiev.
For some time it has looked like the Russians would launch a really big new offensive. The only question has been the goal of a Russian operation. Some think it would be taking Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
The Russians recently knocked out part of Kharkiv’s power grid and Russian forces could be sent to attack the city. But this would create a significant problem since taking cities is a costly, long process that always involves significant casualties. The Russians just went through a very long battle for Avdiivka that took four months. Avdiivka is tiny compared to Kharkiv.
Chasiv Yar and the fighting around that town now seems like a more important and immediate target for the Russians. The fact that it is full of top NATO personnel also says it is a very important strategic asset for the Ukrainians.
Ukraine’s “new” military strategy, led by its new overall military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, is aimed at buying time and delaying any Russian advance.
To do this, the Ukrainians are building trenches and tank traps and other hardened defensive systems. At the same time, Ukraine is trying to divert Russia through artillery and bombing attacks on Russian cities and parallel attempts to attack Crimea.
There has also been a significant increase of NATO operations in the Black Sea, probably to help the Ukrainians target Crimea and targets inside Russia. But diversions are unlikely to change the main character of the war or force the Russians to use their forces to defend key assets in Crimea, Donbas or Russia.
In the next week or two we will likely see what happens in Chasiv Yar and whether the Ukrainians can hold the town and thwart the Russian advance. If they cannot, then NATO will have to think up an alternative that could include opening negotiations with Russia.
This won’t please US President Joe Biden or his national security team, who prefer a prolonged fight in Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reports that a number of unnamed NATO players are already meeting about some sort of negotiated deal, although so far he says the Russians are not included in the process.
Stephen Bryen served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.
This article was first published on his Weapons and Strategy Substack and is republished with permission.