Ukraine weighs options for Bakhmut as Russia struggles

Kyiv considers withdrawal to better defensive position while Moscow continues attempts to encircle city.

A Ukrainian infantryman takes cover in a partially dug trench along the frontline facing Russian troops 250m away on Sunday. Picture: Getty Images

Russian forces are trying to force Ukrainian troops to withdraw from the eastern city of Bakhmut, according to Western military analysts, but are unlikely to encircle the city in the near future.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said on Saturday night that Russian troops were “creating a tactically challenging turning movement in urban areas in northern Bakhmut”.

For months, Russian troops have pushed to take Bakhmut and taken heavy casualties in the process. Though Ukraine has given signals that its forces may soon retreat — the bridge that connects the city to the last main supply route to the town of Chasiv Yar to the west was recently destroyed — Kyiv still holds parts of the city.

The turning move, the institute said, is designed to force Ukrainian troops to retreat from their positions, not to encircle and trap them.

“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 encirclement,” the institute wrote.

The British Ministry of Defence said Sunday on Twitter that close-quarters combat was also increasing around Bakhmut, with some Russian reservists being sent into battle with shovels as weapons.

“This is probably a result of the Russian command continuing to insist on offensive action largely consisting of dismounted infantry, with less support from artillery fire because Russia is short of munitions,” the ministry wrote.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner paramilitary group that has led the assault on Bakhmut, has repeatedly complained in public over recent weeks about a lack of ammunition.

Mr Prigozhin in recent days released a video on Telegram calling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pull his forces out of the city, which he said was effectively surrounded. But he also appeared on video loading bodies of dead Wagner fighters onto a truck to be taken back to Russia, an acknowledgment of the steep human cost of the fight for Bakhmut.

Wagner also recently opened at least three new recruitment centres at Russian sports clubs, according to the Institute for the Study of War, as the group — which had previously relied on recruiting from prisons — looks to replace the soldiers it has lost.

Fighting has also intensified in Ukraine’s northeast, around Kupiansk, which Ukraine retook from Moscow in September.

Serhii Bratchuk, a spokesman for the military administration in Odessa, wrote Sunday on Telegram that one man was killed in Kupyansk after his house was hit by a Russian shell overnight, while a hospital and a school were also damaged. Ukraine this week called on vulnerable residents of Kupiansk to evacuate as fighting in the area intensified.

Meanwhile, top Ukrainian officials were in Lviv, where representatives from a number of Western countries gathered to discuss how to hold Russian officials and soldiers accountable.

Mr Zelensky met with the president of the European Parliament to discuss Ukraine’s candidacy to join the EU.

Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, said that investigators had documented 171 instances of Russian troops committing acts of sexual violence since the war began; 39 of the victims were men, she said, and 13 were children.

The Wall Street Journal