In the battle for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has been going on for months, the Russian military continues to suffer enormously high losses, according to information from Kiev. “Russian losses amount to up to 500 dead and wounded every day,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov told Bild am Sonntag. The Russian soldiers are merely “cannon fodder” in the “meat grinder tactics” used by Moscow. The information on the loss figures cannot be checked independently.
According to Reznikov, Bakhmut is “a symbolic place for the Russians,” which is why efforts to capture the city are so great. Even the capture of these means nothing for the further course of the fighting in Donbass, he told the newspaper.
Kyiv: Attacks repelled at Bakhmut
The Ukrainian general staff reported continued heavy fighting around Bakhmut on Saturday evening. According to the situation report, attempts by the Russian military to encircle the city were “unsuccessful”. The Ukrainian defenders repelled all attacks.
The Russian mercenary unit Wagner is particularly active in Bakhmut and around the city. Their boss, the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is considered close to the Kremlin, has recruited men for the troops in Russian prisons in the past. It is precisely among these prisoners that the casualties are said to be extremely high. The human rights organization “Russia behind bars” recently said that of the 50,000 mercenaries recruited in prisons, only 10,000 are still at the front. The rest were killed, wounded, captured or deserted.
But the losses on the Ukrainian side are also considered high. A few months ago Zelenskyj Bakhmut described it as a “fortress” that will not be given up, but the fall of the city is now being considered as a possibility in Kiev. But the Ukraine wants to hold on to the positions for as long as possible, also because the Russian troops lose a lot of time and energy trying to counter them.
The city itself, which once had 74,000 inhabitants, is now largely destroyed. According to estimates by the authorities, only about 5,000 civilians still live in Bakhmut.
Kiev: Attack is an argument, not an obstacle, for EU membership
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj wants to significantly expand cooperation with the European institutions in the current year and eventually lead his country into the EU. “The task is to actively prepare everything for our country’s membership in the European Union, to increase arms supplies to Ukraine and to strengthen sanctions against Russia,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message on Saturday. He and EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola also spoke about this at a personal meeting.