In just the past few days, Russian forces captured the key city of Avdiivka in Ukraine’s east, and swiftly promised not to lessen the pressure and continue their move west.

Chasiv Yar is just 30 miles north of Avdiivka, and Chaus says he’s worried that his town, already ravaged by the war, would now bear an even greater brunt of the fighting.

Russian military bloggers and Western analysts this week reported renewed fighting near the village of Robotyne in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, which Ukraine’s troops liberated last August, in what, at the time, was seen as an important win that could get Kyiv closer to disrupting Russia’s land bridge to occupied Crimea.