Ukraine is holding out
Keeps grip on Bakhmut amid fierce Russian attacks
Ukrainian troops kept a tenuous hold on the city of Bakhmut on Sunday amid an intense assault by Russian forces trying to surround the industrial city, which has come to symbolize Ukraine’s valiant fighting will.
Officials have warned that Ukrainian forces may need to withdraw, at least partially, to avoid being trapped in Bakhmut by the Russians, who were advancing on three sides in the monthslong onslaught.
A Ukrainian retreat would mean falling back only a few miles from the small city in the eastern Donetsk Province, which military experts say has little actual strategic value.
But Bakhmut has assumed huge symbolic importance.
The Russian effort to seize Bakhmut is led by the private Wagner mercenary group, whose chief, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, is looking for a victory after major defeats by Russia’s regular military.
Many of the fighters Wagner has sent into Bakhmut have been convicted criminals recruited directly from prison.
For Ukrainians, “Bakhmut Stands” has become a rallying motto, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described the embattled city as “the fortress of our morale.”
The city itself is almost entirely destroyed, and nearly all of its 70,000 residents have fled.
Two civilians were killed in the past day, however, a local official said Sunday. On Saturday, a woman was killed and two men were badly wounded by shelling as they tried to cross a makeshift bridge out of the city.
Leaving Bakhmut by vehicle has become so dangerous amid the fierce fighting that residents were being forced to flee on foot, a Ukrainian Army representative said.
Remaining residents were using a pontoon bridge set up by Ukrainian soldiers to help them escape, eyewitnesses reported.
According to Ukrainian reports, Russian forces were attacking Bakhmut with random artillery, mortar and rocket strikes.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said Saturday that Russian forces had not yet forced Ukrainian forces to withdraw and likely would not be able to encircle the city soon.
But it said Russian forces could be forcing Ukrainian troops to pull back from certain positions.
Noting Russian advances on the northern side of Bakhmut, Ukraine’s positions are “under increasingly severe pressure,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said over the weekend.
Although Prigozhin has claimed that Wagner soldiers have “practically surrounded” Bakhmut, he complained in a video circulated over the weekend about a shortage of ammunition and said a Russian retreat from Bakhmut would mean “the entire front will collapse.”
A Russian victory would strengthen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s control over the four eastern regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that Russia has illegally declared as annexed.
In a village in Kherson, a woman and two children were killed in an attack on a residential building, Ukrainian officials said.
Last week, Russia declared Melitopol to be the new capital of Zaporizhzhia — after failing to capture the actual regional capital of Zaporizhzhia city.
A Russian missile strike on an apartment building last Thursday left 13 people dead in the city of Zaporizhzhia. Among the dead was a child, authorities said.
Russian shelling on Saturday killed two people elsewhere in the Zaporizhzhia region, near its nuclear power plant.
Elsewhere, Russian shelling killed a 65-year-old man in the northern Province of Kharkiv, less than 20 miles from the Russian border, the regional governor said Sunday.
Also on Sunday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey was involved in “intense efforts” to extend a deal that has allowed Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports.
The deal, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July and extended in November, has helped slow rising global food prices and allowed shipments to impoverished areas desperately in need of grain. It is due to expire March 18.
Russia has put the possibility of an extension in jeopardy after complaining that its exports of agricultural products and fertilizer have been restricted. Those Russian exports have not been specifically sanctioned by the West, but Russia says it is hampered by issues of logistics, payments and insurance.