Russia, Ukraine forces fight for control outside Bakhmut
Russian forces were wrestling for control of villages in eastern Ukraine near the beleaguered city of Bakhmut over the weekend, the latest flashpoint in a battle that Moscow views as crucial for its push to seize the whole of the eastern region of Donbas.
Ukraine’s general staff said Sunday that its soldiers had repelled attacks on the village of Blahodatne and several other settlements in the area. The statement came a day after Russia’s Wagner group, a private military company that has conducted much of the fighting around Bakhmut on Moscow’s behalf, claimed that its forces had captured Blahodatne.
“Blahodatne is under our control,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessperson and the head of the Wagner group, said in a statement posted by one of his companies.
Russia’s defense ministry has not confirmed the report, and the claim could not be independently verified. Prigozhin has sought to cast his mercenaries as the most effective fighting force in the area and previously has claimed credit for battlefield advances ahead of Kremlin confirmation.
Blahodatne lies between Soledar, a salt-mining town that Russian forces recently captured after weeks of intense fighting, and a road that runs north from the city of Bakhsives mut. The road serves as a crucial supply line for Ukrainian forces defending the city.
Since the summer, Bakhmut has become a focal point of the fighting in eastern Ukraine and the target of Moscow’s most significant offensive.
Moscow aims to encircle Bakhmut, cut off its supply routes and then force the city’s defenders to withdraw. Despite some recent success, Russia’s progress in the campaign, which began over the summer, has been grindingly slow, and both sides have sustained heavy casualties in intense fighting.
Almost a year after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, both sides are expected to open renewed offenin the coming months, as Kyiv puts to use the heavy weapons sent from the West and Russia deploys the huge numbers of men it drafted last year.
In southern Ukraine, the city of Kherson has faced repeated strikes in recent weeks. On Sunday, shelling there killed at least three people and wounded six others, including a nurse, according to the regional military administration.
“Residents of Kherson, go to the nearest shelter or stay at home,” it said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “In no case stay outside.”
Russian forces have shelled Kherson on a near-daily basis following their retreat from the city in November.