Fierce fighting rages in Bakhmut, Russian paramilitary leader says
KYIV, UKRAINE >> Fierce fighting raged Sunday in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, where a Russian paramilitary leader said Ukrainian forces were defending “every street, every house, every stairwell,” as they waged an increasingly desperate effort to deny Moscow its first significant battlefield success in months.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner private military company, whose forces have helped lead Russia's brutal campaign in Bakhmut, said that Ukrainian troops were “fighting to the last,” denying reports on social media that Ukraine's forces were withdrawing from the key city in the eastern Donetsk region.
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine are not retreating anywhere,” Prigozhin said in a statement posted by one of his companies on Telegram, the social messaging app.
As Russia pours more troops into the battle in eastern Ukraine, its Defense Ministry claimed on Sunday that “offensive operations” had helped its forces gain “more advantageous lines and positions” around Donetsk. But there were growing signs that the bitter fighting was exacting an enormous toll on both sides.
Ukraine's defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, told a news conference that 500 Russian soldiers were being killed or wounded daily in their drive to take Bakhmut. Ukraine's losses were significantly fewer, he added, without offering details.
It was not possible to independently verify either side's account of the fighting. But Reznikov's tally roughly matched that of U.S. officials, who believe hundreds of Russian soldiers are being killed or injured every day as the Kremlin rushes many more men — including lightly trained new recruits and ex-convicts — to the front line. Ukrainian forces have at times suffered similar losses in Bakhmut, U.S. officials say.
Reznikov acknowledged that the intense fighting was taking a toll on Ukrainian soldiers on the front line and that keeping up morale after a year of war was a “very serious challenge.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine warned in his nightly address Sunday that Russia wanted to do something “symbolic” this month, to “try to avenge their last year's defeats.”
After losing significant ground to Ukrainian counterattacks last fall, Russia has escalated its campaign in the east, bringing in more troops and intensifying its artillery strikes. Russian forces have slowly surrounded Bakhmut on three sides and cut off many of the roads leading into and out of the city. That has left Ukrainian forces with one road as their last major supply line — or potential escape route.
“Bakhmut is increasingly isolated,” Britain's defense intelligence agency reported Sunday.