Ukrainian authorities announced on Sunday September 17 that their military forces had recaptured Klichtchiïvka, a town located south of the strategic town of Bakhmut, on the eastern front. “I especially want to mention the soldiers who are returning Ukraine its territories, step by step, in the Bakhmut sector,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily video message.
“Klichtchiïvka: well done! “, he added, listing the units that took part in the operation. “Klichtchiïvka has been cleared of Russians,” Oleksandr Syrsky, commander of the Ukrainian land army, echoed on social networks.
This town, with a few hundred inhabitants before the Russian invasion, was taken by Russian forces in January. This announcement comes after the Ukrainian armed forces declared on Friday that they had recaptured another locality, Andriivka, south of Bakhmut. The Russian military said on Sunday that this was not the case.
Ilia Ievlach, spokesperson for the Ukrainian troops on the Eastern Front, for his part explained that the capture of Klichtchiïvka could help the army encircle Bakhmut. “There we gained a bridgehead which will allow us in the future to continue to carry out offensive operations and liberate our land,” he told Ukrainian television.
“It is above all the control of logistics routes which make it possible to supply Bakhmout. It is (also) the exposure of the flanks, particularly to the south, which will allow us to advance more effectively deep into the enemy ranks,” he added. “The railway is very important to the Russians. Fierce fighting is taking place” for its control in this area, he added.
Ukrainian forces are striving, in the east and south, to cut the Russian army’s logistical lines which connect Russian territory to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula occupied since 2014.
Ukraine launched a counter-offensive in June to retake territories occupied by Russia, after receiving Western weapons and training new battalions. Bakhmout, a town of 70,000 inhabitants before the invasion launched by Russia in February 2022, was taken last May by Russian forces after one of the longest and bloodiest battles of this war. However, almost immediately, Ukrainian forces began to regain ground on the northern and southern flanks of this city.
