The eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut is still a battlefield. Ukrainian soldiers defend the last civilians there against capture by Moscow’s army. The mercenary group Wagner succeeds in further advances. Elite units should stop them.
Ukrainian forces are coming under increasing pressure to defend the eastern city of Bakhmut from Russian troops, British sources said. The British Ministry of Defense announced in its daily situation report that Ukraine is strengthening its troops in the region with elite units. However, the Russian army and fighters from the Russian mercenary group Wagner advanced further into the northern suburbs of Bakhmut. There is fierce fighting in and around the city.
Two important bridges in Bakhmut had been destroyed in the past 36 hours and supply routes held by Ukrainian troops were becoming increasingly restricted. According to the Ukrainian military, Russia is still trying to encircle Bakhmut. However, Ukrainian troops have recently successfully repelled Russian attacks. The capture of the towns of Ivanivske and Bohdanivka, which are less than eight kilometers west of the center of Bakhmut, was also thwarted. Should they fall, a complete ingestion of Bachmut would be unavoidable.
There has been fierce fighting over Bachmut for months. On Friday, the Russian artillery fired on the last arterial roads from Bakhmut in order to completely enclose the city, which is regarded as strategically important. In Bachmut, where around 70,000 people lived before the war, several thousand civilians are still holding out. The capture of the city would be the first major success for the invading forces in more than half a year and would open the way to bringing the remaining urban centers in the Donbass under Russian control.
The industrial Donbass in eastern Ukraine consists of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu paid a visit to the troops in southern Donetsk. The Ministry of Defense in Moscow announced that he had inspected an upstream command post. In a video released by the ministry, Shoigu can be seen bestowing medals on soldiers and touring a devastated city with Eastern Military District commander Rustam Muradov.
Shoigu has rarely visited Russian troops in Ukraine. In Russia, he was sharply criticized by commentators and war advocates for the course of the war, which did not result in a quick victory but instead brought several severe setbacks, including by the head of the Wagner mercenary unit, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Prigozhin published another video on Saturday. According to him, it shows coffins of Ukrainian soldiers. “They fought bravely and died doing it,” he said. Therefore they should be sent back to Ukrainian territory. In the past few days, Prigozhin had published several videos intended to show the advance towards Bakhmut.
