Russia has deployed reinforcements to Bakhmut to replenish lost northern and southern flanks and prevent more Ukrainian breakthroughs, according to Ukrainian officials and other outside observers. Yevhen Mezhevikin, commander of a specialized group fighting in Bakhmut, said Thursday. “The main idea is to exhaust them, then to attack,” Ukrainian Col. Ukrainian military leaders say their months-long resistance has been worth it because it limited Russia’s capabilities elsewhere and allowed for Ukrainian advances. “Our troops have taken the city in a semi-encirclement, which gives us the opportunity to destroy the enemy.” The continuing advance of our troops in the suburbs greatly complicates the enemy’s presence,” said Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister. They lost part of the heights around the city.
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The Ukrainian military has aimed to deplete the resources and morale of Russian troops in the tiny but tactical patch of the 1,500-kilometer (932-mile) front line as Ukraine gears up for a major counteroffensive in the 15-month-old war. The more meaningful gauge of success for Ukrainian forces has been their ability to keep the Russians bogged down. Regardless, the small city has long had more symbolic than strategic value for both sides.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said Bakhmut was not being fully occupied by Russian forces. The fog of war made it impossible to confirm the situation on the ground Sunday in the invasion’s longest battle: Russia’s defense ministry reported that the Wagner private army backed by Russian troops had seized the city.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - The nine-month battle for Bakhmut has destroyed the 400-year-old city in eastern Ukraine and killed tens of thousands of people in a mutually devastating demonstration of Ukraine’s strategy of exhausting the Russian military.
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