Russian, Ukrainian forces pinned down in fight for key city

Wagner paramilitary fighters struggle to advance across river in Bakhmut.

Ukrainian gunners let rip with their 155mm M777 howitzer towards Russian positions near Bakhmut at the weekend. Picture: AFP

Russian forces staged multiple attacks on the eastern city of Bakhmut on Sunday in a bid to gain new ground, while Ukrainian forces defending the city were fighting to prevent being cut off after months of grinding combat.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that 1100 enemy soldiers had been killed on the battlefield around Bakhmut during the past week alone.

Ukrainian forces withdrew from the eastern side of the river that cuts through Bakhmut last week, taking up more easily defensible positions in the western part of the city.

But Russian advances around the city’s northern and southern flanks are squeezing Ukraine’s remaining supply lines into the city from the west.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Sunday that Russian forces had attacked 15 villages on the Bakhmut front over the past day. “The Russians did not stop storming the city of Bakhmut,” it said on social media.

Despite the risk of encirclement and heavy casualties, Ukraine’s leadership has vowed to continue defending the city, seeking to grind down Russian forces and buy time to prepare for a planned offensive of its own.

Mr Zelensky said on Sunday that more than 10 Russian ammunition depots and dozens of pieces of their equipment had been eliminated around Bakhmut. In addition to the soldiers who were killed, he said that 1500 Russian soldiers had been wounded and would no longer be capable of fighting.

Russian forces didn’t make confirmed advances on Saturday and Wagner Group paramilitary fighters spearheading the offensive may be increasingly pinned in urban areas of the city, Washington’s Institute for the Study of War think tank said on Sunday.

Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video posted to his Telegram channel on Saturday that Russian troops were positioned about 1200m from Bakhmut’s city center.

For Russia, capturing Bakhmut would remove an obstacle to its goal of capturing the whole of the eastern Donetsk region and the wider Donbas industrial area of which it is part.

Ukrainian security services said on Sunday that they had identified the unarmed Ukrainian soldier who appeared in a video being killed while apparently being held prisoner by Russian troops.

Wagner posted the footage, which shows the man standing in a forest clearing in a military uniform, taking a drag of a cigarette and saying “Glory to Ukraine” in Ukrainian before gunfire rings out and he falls to the ground.

The clip stirred outrage in Ukraine and was seized on by Ukrainian officials as evidence that Russian forces are continuing to perpetrate war crimes a year into the invasion.

The soldier was identified by the Ukrainian security services as Oleksandr Matsiyevskiy, a sniper of the 163rd Battalion of the 119th Territorial Defense Brigade from the northern Chernihiv region.

“We have succeeded in confirming the hero’s details after complex investigative actions that included talking to the family and comrades-in-arms of the executed soldier, as well as processing photos and videos,” Ukrainian security services said. Forensic evidence was also used to confirm Mr. Matsiyevskiy’s identity, it added.

Mr Zelensky on Sunday conferred the title of Hero of Ukraine, the highest state honor, on Mr Matsiyevskiy.

Russian troops on Sunday captured Krasnohorivka in the Donetsk region, about 110km southwest of Bakhmut, Russian proxies in the occupied territory claimed.

Moscow’s forces also shelled Ukrainian positions along the front line north of Bakhmut, which snakes through the Luhansk and Kharkiv regions.

Russian forces are maintaining a significant military presence in the areas bordering Ukraine to prevent the redeployment of Ukrainian units to other stretches of the front line, the Ukrainian General Staff said.

The head of the Kharkiv regional military administration said authorities were evacuating civilians from the Kupyansk district as Russian forces intensified attacks there.

“Enemy forces are relentlessly trying to attack the positions of our forces,” Oleh Synehubov said on a TV broadcast. “That’s why we announced mandatory evacuation. We are trying to explain this to local residents.” Ukrainian forces recaptured Kupyansk during an offensive in the autumn, but the city remains within range of Russian artillery.

Authorities in the southern provincial capital of Kherson have also urged civilians to leave the city, which has been routinely shelled by Russian forces since Ukraine forced them to relinquish it last year.

Russian forces shelled the city of Ochakiv in the southern Mykolaiv region overnight, damaging private homes and vehicles, said the head of the military administration, Vitaliy Kim.

In Kyiv, city authorities said heating and water supply had been fully restored following a missile barrage last week that left 40 per cent of the capital’s residents without heating. Moscow said it carried out the barrage, which included Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, in response to an attack on Russian territory that it blamed on Ukrainian saboteurs. Ukraine’s intelligence services denied involvement in the attack in Bryansk, in which two civilians were killed.

The Wall Street Journal