Fri. Nov 22nd, 2024
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Ukrainian forces defending Bakhmut are facing increasingly strong pressure from Russian forces, British military intelligence said on Saturday, with intense fighting taking place in and around the eastern city.

Ukraine is reinforcing the area with elite units, while regular Russian army and forces of the Russian private military Wagner Group have made further advances into Bakhmut’s northern suburbs, the British Defence Ministry said in its daily intelligence bulletin on Twitter.

Two key bridges in Bakhmut have been destroyed within the last 36 hours, it said, adding that Ukrainian-held resupply routes out of the city are increasingly limited.

Reuters observed intense Russian shelling of routes leading west out of Bakhmut on Friday, an apparent attempt to block Ukrainian forces’ access in and out of the city.

Russia’s RIA state news agency released a video showing what it said were fighters from Russia’s Wagner Group private army walking by a damaged industrial facility.

One fighter can be heard saying Ukraine’s army is destroying infrastructure in settlements near Bakhmut to prevent the Russian encirclement.

The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, visited Bakhmut on Friday for briefings with local commanders on how to boost the defence capacity of frontline forces.

A bearded man in combat gear looks at the camere as a tank fires behind him.
A self-propelled artillery vehicle in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Thursday.(AP Photo: Iryna Rybakova)

Denys Yaroslavskyi, commander of a Ukrainian army unit at Bakhmut, told Espreso TV that parts of some units had been ordered to rotate to more secured positions, describing the situation since the morning as “a slaughterhouse on both sides”.

A Russian victory in Bakhmut, with a pre-war population of about 70,000, would give it its first major prize in a costly winter offensive, after it called up hundreds of thousands of reservists last year.

Russia says it would be a stepping stone to completing the capture of the Donbas industrial region, one of Moscow’s most important objectives.

Before the war, Bakhmut was known for its salt and gypsum mines. Ukraine says the city has little strategic value, and the huge casualties Russia has suffered trying to take Bakhmut could shape the course of the conflict.

‘Pincers are closing’, Prigozhin says

“Units of the private military company Wagner have practically surrounded Bakhmut,” Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video that Reuters determined was filmed on a rooftop in a village some seven kilometres north of the city centre.

“Only one route [out] is left,” he said. “The pincers are closing.”

An older white man in heavily armoured combat gear and a helmet stands on a rooftop, with a soldier looking out behind him.
Wagner Group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin calls on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to withdraw Ukrainian troops from Bakhmut.(Prigozhin Press Service via Reuters)

Mr Prigozhin called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to order a retreat from Bakhmut to save his soldiers’ lives.

The camera then panned to show three captured Ukrainians — a grey-bearded older man and two boys — asking to be allowed to go home.

Robert Brovdi, the commander of a Ukrainian drone unit active in Bakhmut who goes by the name “Madyar”, said in a video posted on social media that his unit had been ordered to withdraw immediately.

He said he had been fighting there for 110 days.

Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy commander in the National Guard of Ukraine, told Ukrainian NV Radio the situation was “critical”, with fighting “round the clock”.

“They take no account of their losses in trying to take the city by assault. The task of our forces in Bakhmut is to inflict as many losses on the enemy as possible. Every metre of Ukrainian land costs hundreds of lives to the enemy,” he said.

“There are many more Russians here than we have ammunition to destroy them.”

Russia regroups after border-region raid

The past few days have seen alarm in Russia at its own potential vulnerabilities after Moscow reported a number of drone attacks on targets deep within Russia, followed by what it said was an armed cross-border raid on Thursday.

President Vladimir Putin told his security council on Friday to step up “anti-terrorism measures”.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu also paid a rare visit to Russia’s forces deployed in Ukraine, his ministry said on Saturday.

Russia’s top military chiefs have visited front lines in Ukraine only sparingly since the beginning of the war, which Moscow calls a “special military operation”.

“The Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu, inspected the forward command post of one of the formations of the Eastern Military District in the South Donetsk direction,” his ministry said in a statement published on messaging app Telegram.

An older man with white hair in combat gear stands in front of a row of young men in military uniforms.
A still image from a video released by Russia’s Defence Ministry showing Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu inspecting Russian troops.(Russian Defence Ministry via Reuters)

In a video released by the ministry, General Shoigu is seen awarding medals to Russian military personnel and touring a ruined town together with the district’s commander, Colonel-General Rustam Muradov.

General Shoigu, who has served as defence minister since 2012, has come under harsh criticism over his performance in the conflict from pro-war advocates.

Mr Prigozhin last month accused the him and others of “treason” for withholding supplies of munitions to his militia.

Russia must face court, Zelenskyy tells Garland, Europeans

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday met with US Attorney-General Merrick Garland and top European legal officials, calling for Russia to face international prosecution for war crimes.

Mr Zelenskyy announced the meetings in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, hundreds of kilometres from the war’s front lines, during his evening video address to the nation.

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