Cars accelerate, zigzagging between holes in the asphalt, an exploded ambulance and concrete blocks from an abandoned checkpoint. In the distance, on the horizon, above gray buildings riddled with impacts, columns of white smoke rise into the leaden sky. The last access road to reach the center of Bakhmout is regularly bombarded. After months and months of battle, the martyred city is now gripped by Russian forces to the north and south. There is now only a corridor a few kilometers wide to enter and leave the city. In the city of Donbass on which the Russian forces have been relentless since August, the heavy silence is constantly disturbed by explosions testifying to fierce fighting.
The battle for the “fortress” become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian steamroller is at a turning point. The Russian armed forces supported by the Wagner private militia mercenaries have made significant progress in recent days in their attempt to encircle them. After having sworn in December 2022 to do everything to defend the city ” as long as possible “, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted on Tuesday evening that the situation in the city is concentrating “greatest difficulties” for the soldiers of his army: “Russia does not count its men at all, constantly sending them to attack our positions. The intensity of the fighting only increases. » In the morning, the commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, also said that “The situation around Bakhmout is extremely tense”.
The Ukrainian armed forces do not communicate on the continuation of the operations and the next stage of the battle of Bakhmout is still far from being definitive. Military convoys continue to enter and leave the city, which had 70,000 inhabitants before the war – there are only 5,000 left according to regional authorities – while in the city center, Ukrainian soldiers are still defending the neighborhoods disfigured by the fighting. In Bakhmout, apart from the rare haggard civilians who seem insensitive to the explosions after months of bombardment, the arteries of the center are borrowed by unmarked military vehicles which circulate at full speed.
“Maybe this is the end”
Sunday February 26, in an alley covered with a mixture of ice and mud, a soldier answering to the nom de guerre “Otta” estimated that the city could still hold “a week, two weeks with a bit of luck”. The man is a soldier belonging to the Belarusian regiment Kastus-Kalinowski, whose soldiers, opponents of the regime of the dictator of Minsk, Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of the Kremlin, answer to the command of the Ukrainian army. Some of the men of this military formation have been engaged in combat on the Bakhmout front since November. “This may be the end of Bakhmout, finally blows Otta. We need a miracle here. »
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