The Ukrainian military yesterday was preparing for an upcoming counteroffensive, with a top commander saying his forces’ ongoing defense of Bakhmut in the face of fierce and sustained Russian attacks was necessary to “buy time” for that push.
The remarks came as British intelligence said the frontline had shifted in the fight for Bakhmut — the longest and bloodiest battle of Moscow’s year-long invasion — but that any further Russian advance in the devastated town would be “highly challenging.”
Some military experts have questioned the sense of continuing to hold the city, but Ukrainian ground forces commander Oleksandr Syrsky said that it helped win time in preparation for a coming counteroffensive, “which is not far off.”
Photo: AFP
“The real heroes now are the defenders who are holding the eastern front on their shoulders, and inflicting the heaviest possible losses, sparing neither themselves nor the enemy,” Syrsky was quoted as saying in a statement on Saturday.
In a video released on Saturday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the Russian Wagner mercenary group, said that his forces were close to the administrative center of the city.
Standing on the rooftop of a highrise building in what is said to be Bakhmut, Prigozhin is seen pointing towards a building in the distance.
“This is the building of the town administration, this is the center of the town,” he said, clad in full military gear.
Wagner has been spearheading offensives against cities in eastern Ukraine including Bakhmut. Both sides have suffered heavy losses.
The Ukrainian defense ministry on Saturday reported that its forces had repelled “more than 100 enemy attacks” over the past day along the eastern front.
In an interview with French media, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna underscored the human cost of Russia’s assault on Bakhmut.
“Thousands of Russian soldiers died at a considerable rate in this battle,” she said. “The human mass of its infantry is a formidable weapon, it seems inexhaustible in volume and in time.”
However, even if it did capture the “small town,” she added, “it will not impact the strategic corridors we still control in the region.”
British military intelligence said that the Bakhmutka River, in the center of the city, now marked the front line.
“Ukrainian forces hold the west of the town and have demolished key bridges over the river, which runs north-south through a strip of open ground 200 to 800 meters wide,” the British Ministry of Defence said.
“This area has become a killing zone, likely making it highly challenging for Wagner forces attempting to continue their frontal assault westwards.”
Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been entangled in a power struggle with the Russian Ministry of Defense.
He has several times claimed battlefield victories ahead of Russia’s army, criticized the country’s top brass and accused the military of not sharing ammunition with Wagner forces.
On Saturday he said he was ready to ask Russia’s top commanders for forgiveness, but at the same time appeared to mock Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
They are “outstanding military commanders,” he said, adding that Russia’s greatest military leaders “could have learned” from them.
“I absolutely, totally support all their initiatives,” Prigozhin said.
Since Russia’s retreat from the city of Kherson late last year, it has been regularly pounded by Moscow’s troops. The Russian army has kept shelling the southern city, killing three people and wounding another two, Ukrainian officials said Saturday.
Kherson is the capital of one of the four regions — along with Donetsk, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia — that Russia claims to have annexed, but does not fully control. Donetsk Mayor Alexei Kulemzin on Saturday said that Ukrainian shelling had killed two people, including a young boy.
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