Ukraine claims territory gains in battle for Bakhmut

Although incremental, the advance by Kyi around a crucial supply line is a boost to its effort to maintain a foothold in the city.

Ukrainian servicemen launch a reconnaissance drone near Bakhmut. Picture: AFP

Ukrainian troops say they have clawed back some ground around Bakhmut, dealing a blow to Russian forces seeking to dislodge the last Ukrainian units holding several blocks in the westernmost part of the eastern city after months of grinding combat.

Although incremental, the Ukrainian advance around a crucial supply line northwest of Bakhmut is a boost to its effort to maintain a foothold in the city and a success that could deepen a rift between the Russian military and the Wagner paramilitary group. Wagner has spearheaded Russia’s Bakhmut offensive and its chief has accused a Russian military unit of abandoning its positions.

Ukraine’s Third Storm Brigade, which is one of the country’s most elite military units and made up of veterans of the Azov Regiment, said in a post on Telegram that 64 Russians were killed and five captured in the advance.

Andriy Biletskiy, who founded the Azov Regiment and continues to train recruits near the front lines, said in a video posted to Telegram that Russia’s 72nd Brigade had been dealt a debilitating blow. “The brigade’s reconnaissance has been destroyed, a large number of its armoured vehicles have been wiped out and a large number of prisoners of war have been taken,” he said.

The Ukrainian push in and around Bakhmut comes as Russia struggles to complete its capture of the city, facing fierce resistance. It also coincides with a public feud between Russia’s Defence Ministry and Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Appearing to confirm Russian losses, Mr Prigozhin on Tuesday said an entire unit of Russia’s ground forces had fled from its positions around Bakhmut, exposing a large section of Russia’s front line. He specifically named the 72nd Brigade. “They just upped and bolted,” Mr Prigozhin said in a video posted to Telegram, adding that the abandoned positions were a key section for Wagner forces in the area.

Mr Prigozhin has vacillated over Wagner’s continuing role in Bakhmut, promising last week to withdraw his troops from the city by May 10 and then saying he had changed his mind because the Defence Ministry had promised to provide the ammunition his troops need to keep fighting.

On Tuesday, he said the ministry hadn’t given him the promised ammunition and that he would make a decision about whether Wagner would continue to contest the city or leave it to troops overseen by the Defence Ministry. “We’ll keep insisting for a few more days,” he said.

The standoff between Mr Prigozhin and Russian military officials has deepened at a time when Ukraine is making final preparations for a widely anticipated counteroffensive to oust Russian troops from territory they have seized since the invasion began in February last year. Bakhmut has been a key focus for Russian forces ahead of the Ukrainian ­offensive, and fighting there has been particularly intense.

Away from the battle lines in the east and south, Russia has continued to pummel Ukrainian cities with missiles. Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said that Ukraine had used a Patriot air-defence system supplied by the US to shoot down a Russian ­missile over the weekend.

In January, Russia struck Kyiv and other cities in an early-morning barrage that included ballistic missiles, which can soar beyond the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds and are much harder to shoot down than the Russian cruise missiles Ukraine has successfully targeted in recent months. “Ballistic rockets are not accessible for us to spot them and shoot them down,” Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said at the time.

The arrival of Patriot systems in Ukraine in recent weeks has given Kyiv the capability to down some of the ballistic missiles that were previously out of its range. Ukraine said on Saturday that it had shot down a Russian Kinzhal missile using a Patriot system, marking the first time it had intercepted a ballistic missile of a type that travels much faster, and Brigadier General Ryder said he confirmed the claim.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said last August that the hypersonic Kinzhal missile was “impossible to either ­locate or intercept”.

Meanwhile, authorities in Russia’s Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, said an enemy drone had been shot down over the village of Tolmachevo, near the regional capital. The regional governor, Roman Starovoit, ­posted images to his Telegram channel that he said showed the damaged facade of a house and a gas pipe partly destroyed as a ­result of the falling debris.

The Wall Street Journal