‘Torched-earth tactics’ as Russia shells war-torn city of Bakhmut
SEVERAL Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russian shells while trying to flee Bakhmut on foot, as one official accused Moscow’s scorched-earth tactics of turning the war-torn eastern city into a new Mariupol.
At least three people died yesterday when a shell hit a makeshift bridge they were using to escape the city, according to witnesses. Nearby, heavy shelling also set alight several houses.
Rescue workers and the Ukrainian army have cancelled vehicle rescue missions into Bakhmut because they have become too dangerous and told civilians that they have to flee by foot.
“The Russians are shelling everything they have no goal to save the city. The only goal is killing people and the genocide of the Ukrainian people,” said Oleksandr Marchenko, the deputy mayor of Bakhmut.
He believes the Kremlin is replaying the same scorched-earth tactics that it deployed at the start of the war.
“They want to destroy Bakhmut like they did with Mariupol”, he told the BBC Today programme.
Following a costly seven-month siege, Moscow’s forces now expect to capture the city in the coming days.
Western intelligence reports have said that Russian forces now surround Bakhmut and Ukrainian soldiers may have been forced into a tactical retreat.
The UK Ministry of Defence said that the remaining Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut were enclosed on three sides and that Russian artillery had destroyed several key bridges out of the city. “Ukrainian-held resupply routes out of the town are increasingly limited.”
So far Ukraine is still holding on, however. “There is fighting near the city and there are also street fights,” Mr Marchenko added. Footage from Bakhmut show something close to a dystopian hellscape.
All the trees in the surrounding countryside are scorched and lifeless. The grass has been turned into mud. In the city, almost every building has been destroyed. The smashed shop signs are reminders of times before war ripped apart the city where 70,000 people had once lived.
Thousands of soldiers have died in the battle for Bakhmut on both sides. Ukraine’s military has reported that the Russian army treated its soldiers as cannon fodder, sending thousands into their machine gun fire.
Some 4,000 people remain in the city, according to Ukrainian officials. They are either too poor, too old, too stubborn or too bewildered to evacuate.
And they exist in a twilight zone of explosions, hunger, cold and death.
Hennadiy Mazepa and his wife Natalia Ishkova both chose to remain even though there is little food left.
“Humanitarian (aid) is given to us only once a month. There is no electricity, no water, no gas,” Ms Ishkova said. “I pray to God that all who remain here will survive.”
The precarious existence for those still in the city is reflected in the names for the Ukrainian missions into the city that had been running until recently.
White Angels searched Bakhmut for any civilians who wanted rescuing. They often brought food and sleeping bags with them to drop off. Dark Angels was the name for the missions that retrieved the dead bodies.
Analysts have said that the fight for Bakhmut may become one of the defining battles of the war in Ukraine, not because the victor will emerge with any strategic advantage, but because it has become a symbol.