A Ukrainian counter-offensive in preparation
Evgueni Prigojine, the boss of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, claimed on Saturday a new progression of his men who are fighting on the front line of Bakhmout, this city in eastern Ukraine that Russian forces have been trying to take since the summer, at the cost of heavy losses.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces had the day before “repelled more than 100 enemy attacks” in the main combat zones.
On the same day, the British Ministry of Defense announced that“in the last four days”the Wagner Group had “taken control of most of the east” of Bakhmout. “Ukrainian forces control the west of the city and have demolished key bridges over the river [qui la traverse] »he pointed out.
“The real heroes are the defenders who hold the Eastern Front on their shoulders”for his part, hailed the commander of the Ukrainian ground forces Oleksandr Syrsky, who called ” necessary “ Bakhmut’s continued defense against attacks from Moscow. “We have to gain time to accumulate reserves and launch a counter-offensive, which is not far away”he said, quoted by the press service of the army.
“At the start of the war, we didn’t have drones. Missions were more complicated and less effective. But, in the summer, we started receiving drones and other equipment. Today we are more efficient”explains to Agence France-Presse, Petro, the pilot of one of the three MI-8 attack helicopters which had just carried out a raid against a target near Bakhmout.
The Russian army has been trying for several weeks to encircle this city of some 70,000 inhabitants before the conflict and have succeeded in cutting off several important roads for the supply of Ukrainian soldiers.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanichyna conceded in an interview with Sunday newspaper that he « dev[enait] complicated (…) to resist and deter [les forces à Bakhmout] ». “We estimate that the Russian army has already lost 150,000 men since last year in its military offensives on our soil. The human mass of its infantry is a formidable weapon, it seems inexhaustible in volume and in time”she said.