Ukraine set for major defeat as strategic city of Bakhmut ‘surrounded’
Gut-wrenching drone footage shows a Ukrainian city razed to an apocalyptic wasteland as Kyiv vows to hold onto a frontline city. Watch video.
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Chilling video and drone footage shows an entire city in Ukraine destroyed and reduced to matchsticks by relentless Russian shelling.
The gut-wrenching images reveal the charred ruins of the decimated city of Maryinka in the Donetsk region where 10,000 people once lived.
Maryinka, a historic city with a rich history and diverse population including Ukrainian, Polish, and Greek settlers, has been completely destroyed with every building and tree razed to the ground and reduced to rubble and stumps.
Footage from the destroyed #Maryinka. The city was simply razed to the ground. pic.twitter.com/5SklY7m8lk
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 6, 2023
Images show an apocalyptic wasteland flattened to uninhabitable smoking ruins with even the roads erased as far as the eye can see.
The deserted city is now filled with piles of grey ruins and gigantic craters after being pounded by Russian forces.
Maryinka’s police chief, Artem Schus, said Russian troops are continuing to blast the ruins to “destroy all cover, regardless of whether it is a civilian shelter or a military facility”.
He said his city is “completely destroyed”, The Sun reports.
The area had been evacuated as there was “no way for the civilian population to live there”, he added.
“They destroy everything because, with their tactics, they cannot defeat our troops, and resort to the destruction of all living things,” Mr Schus said.
Maryinka has been a battleground for years after Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014.
It comes as about 100 kilometres to the north, fighting is raging in the ruined city of Bakhmut.
Top Ukrainian military commanders said they were in favour of strengthening their defensive positions in the embattled eastern town of Bakhmut, the presidency said Monday, after reports Kyiv may have begun withdrawing.
Bakhmut has become the bloodiest and longest-running battle of Russia’s year-long campaign in Ukraine, even though analysts suggest the city holds little strategic significance.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting with Valery Zaluzhny, head of Ukraine’s armed forces, and Oleksandr Syrsky, commander of the country’s ground forces, according to a statement.
Ukraine also faced new air attacks, with the air force saying that it had shot down explosive drones launched from southern Russia overnight.
The air force said on Telegram that Russian forces had launched 15 Iran-made Shahed drones, 13 of which Ukrainian forces shot down.
UKRAINE VOWS TO HOLD CITY OF BAKHMUT
Kyiv said it was holding off attacks from Russian troops still attempting to surround Bakhmut, a now-destroyed eastern Ukrainian city that Moscow has been trying to capture for months.
Ukraine has vowed to defend “fortress Bakhmut” but it has faced Russian troops determined to take the city that has turned into a political prize as the battle drags on.
The Ukrainian general staff said “more than 130 enemy attacks” had been repelled over the past day including in Kupiansk, Lyman, Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
“The enemy continues its attempts to encircle the town of Bakhmut,” it said on Sunday morning.
Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region, has been mostly reduced to rubble during the longest and bloodiest battle of the invasion.
Sergiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces, said on Saturday the situation was “difficult but under control” in the city he described as a “priority target for the enemy”.
There is fighting in an around the city, the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said, warning that with Ukrainian supply routes were narrowing.
“The Russians may have intended to encircle Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut, but the Ukrainian command has signalled that it will likely withdraw rather than risk an encirclement,” ISW said Saturday.
It comes as the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenaries said they had “practically encircled” Bakhmut, cutting off Ukrainian forces in the strategic city on the eastern front where fighting has been fiercest.
Ukraine has said it will defend “fortress Bakhmut” for as long as possible but this week officials said the situation was becoming increasingly difficult.
Russia is determined to seize Bakhmut — a now-destroyed city once known for its sparkling wine — as part of its wider aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region.
“Wagner paramilitary group units have practically surrounded Bakhmut, only one road remains” to be captured, Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video on Telegram.
The head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, reported on the actual encirclement of Bakhmut (Artyomovsk), there was only one road left to the city.#UkraineWarpic.twitter.com/cqynIz7vvg
— George A. Hamalian (@gahamalian) March 3, 2023
The stocky 61-year old has regularly been posting about advances of Wagner, his once-shadowy force that has taken centre stage in the fight in eastern Ukraine.
He has said in recent weeks that his fighters have seized three villages north of Bakhmut — Yagidne, Berkhivka and Paraskoviivka.
“If earlier we were fighting against the professional army, we now increasingly see old people and children,” Prigozhin said, in the video released Friday.
“They are fighting, but their life expectancy in Bakhmut is now very short, one day or two,” Prigozhin said, calling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “let (Ukrainian soldiers) leave”.
Ukrainian troops have held out for months, fighting brutal trench warfare and artillery battles that have flattened large portions of the city.
Zelenskyy this week said that the fighting was “only increasing.”
His comments followed an assessment from the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces Oleksandr Syrskyi, who said the situation was “extremely tense” in the city.
Only around 4,500 civilians remain in the destroyed city, which had a population of about 70,000 before the conflict, Ukrainian officials said.
Both Ukrainian and Russian forces have reported heavy casualties in the struggle for the control of the city, whose symbolic importance outstrips its military significance.
The fight for the city has also exposed political rivalries between Prigozhin and Russia’s regular army.
Last week, he issued an unprecedented call to Russians to take his side and urged the defence ministry to share ammunition with his fighters.
UKRAINIAN SOLDIER FIGHTS RUSSIAN TANK
Incredible footage has captured the moment a Ukrainian soldier fought back against an aggressive Russian attack.
The video, taken by a drone, shows the lone soldier as he comes face-to-face with a Russian armoured personal carrier, diving for cover amid a barrage of shells and blasts.
The Ukrainian fighter is initially holed up in a trench, as he doges the onslaught of Russian gunfire.
Despite the assault, the soldier is seen firing back at the Russian troops.
Shared on Twitter, the video was captioned: “Our hero under heavy fire one-on-one with an APC.
“Books should be written about these people, and they are just silently defending our country.”
It’s not known where the footage was filmed.
RUSSIA SUFFERS ‘MAJOR DEFEAT’
Russia has suffered a “major defeat” over the northern hemisphere winter, one top Ukrainian official claimed.
Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, took to Twitter to highlight the Kremlin’s failure to “freeze” Ukraine in recent months, despite months of targeted bombing of civilian infrastructure.
“On March 1, 2023, Putin suffered another major defeat. Despite the cold, darkness, and missile strikes, Ukraine persevered and defeated his winter terror,” he wrote.
“Furthermore, Europe has not ‘frozen’ despite Russian predictions and mockery. I thank our partners for standing with Ukraine.”
It comes as Mr Putin’s military struck a five-storey apartment block in Zaporizhzhia, killing at least two civilians.
The Russian leader also accused “neo-Nazis” and “terrorists” of opening fire on civilians in the southern Bryansk region, after a reconnaissance group was accused of crossing the border from Ukraine.
“Our soldiers and officers … protect against neo-Nazis and terrorists … those who today committed another terrorist attack, penetrated the border area and opened fire on civilians,” Mr Putin said in a televised address.
US, RUSSIA TRADE BARBS OVER UKRAINE
Meanwhile, the United States and Russia met in their highest face-to-face contact since the invasion of Ukraine last year on the sidelines of a G20 meeting that ended in disarray due to divisions over the conflict.
US Secretary of State and Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke briefly at the meeting of the world’s top diplomats in New Delhi, which failed to reach a joint final declaration after objections from Moscow and Beijing.
Mr Blinken reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to protecting its ally Ukraine in order to “disabuse the Russians of any notion that our support might be wavering”, a US official said on condition of anonymity.
The last time Mr Blinken and Mr Lavrov were in the same room — at a G20 meeting in Bali last July — the latter stormed out, according to Western officials.
Until Thursday local time, there had been no high-level face-to-face contacts between the US and Russian governments since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, with Washington firmly backing Kyiv and spearheading international efforts to isolate Russia.
Russian diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova sought to downplay the significance of the encounter, telling state news agency RIA Novosti that Mr Blinken had initiated it and that it had been fleeting.
Mr Lavrov “spoke to him, standing, as part of the second session of the G20,” she said. “No talks or real meeting took place.”
NO JOINT STATEMENT
The G20 meeting drew to a close without a joint statement — the second such meeting of the bloc to fail to reach an accord in as many weeks.
Mr Lavrov told the assembled foreign ministers that Western representatives had derailed the meeting in an effort to scapegoat Russia for their own failings, disrespecting efforts by the Indian hosts to reach agreement on other issues.
“I want to apologise to the Indian presidency and to our colleagues from countries of the global South for the obscene behaviour of some Western delegations, which have turned the G20’s agenda into a farce,” Mr Lavrov said, according to Russian news agency TASS.
Discussions over the joint statement faltered on several issues including Russia’s insistence on an investigation into the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline last year, Mr Lavrov told reporters through an interpreter.
Russia and Western countries have traded accusations of responsibility for the September explosions.
A statement issued at the conclusion of the G20 meeting showed China had joined Russia in refusing to support the bloc’s demands that Moscow cease hostilities in Ukraine.
Both countries were the only G20 members not to agree to the statement demanding Russia’s “complete and unconditional withdrawal”.
A meeting of G20 finance ministers in Indian city Bengaluru last week had also failed to agree on a common statement after Russia and China sought to water down language on the war.
Western delegates fear China is considering supplying arms to Russia and said ahead of the summit they intended to discourage Beijing from intervening in the conflict.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has framed itself as a neutral party, while retaining close ties with its strategic ally Russia.
Beijing has reacted furiously to the claims it may be contemplating arms transfers, and in February it issued a position paper calling for dialogue to resolve the conflict.
Russia’s war in Ukraine crowded out other agenda items at the meeting of the Group of Twenty, which comprises the world’s 19 largest economies and the European Union.
The differences frustrated India, which said it wanted to use its year as host to focus on issues such as alleviating poverty and climate finance.
“On the issue, which very frankly concerned Ukraine, Ukrainian conflict, there were divergences, there were differences, which we couldn’t reconcile,” Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar told reporters as the meeting concluded.
Earlier in the day, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said global governance had “failed” and urged attendees to come together for the sake of developing countries not represented there.
“As the leading economies of the world, we also have a responsibility for those who are not in this room,” he added.
While India shares Western concerns about China, it is also a major buyer of Russian arms and has ramped up Russian oil imports.
India has not condemned the invasion of Ukraine, Mr Modi told Mr Putin last year this was “not a time for war”.
– with AFP
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