“The battle for the city of Bakhmout continues”, says the Ukrainian general staff
The Ukrainian army claims to be carrying out counter-attacks in the devastated city of Bakhmout, which kyiv denies the capture claimed by Moscow.
The leader of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, Evgueni Prigojine, whose men are on the front line in the fighting, then the Russian Ministry of Defense had assured Saturday to have “totally liberated” Bakhmout, a mining town in eastern Ukraine and the epicenter of the longest and deadliest battle of the war that began in February 2022. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was in Japan for the summit of the G7, assured Sunday that the city “not busy” by Russian troops, after a series of ambiguous statements about the situation there.
“There is nothing in this place (…) just ruins and lots of dead Russians”, he launched, seeming to suggest that Bakhmout would be only a Pyrrhic victory for the Russians. The president also drew a parallel between the images of the destruction caused by the fighting in Bakhmout and those of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the United States in 1945, which killed around 140,000 people. “I can honestly say that the photos of destroyed Hiroshima remind me of Bakhmout. There is absolutely nothing left alive, all the buildings are destroyed (…) absolute and total destruction. »
Ukrainian ground forces commander Oleksandr Syrsky says his troops now only control part of the “insignificant” of Bakhmout, while “keep moving forward” on the northern and southern sides of the city.
According to Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, Kyiv forces have “partially surrounded” Bakhmout thanks to their recent breakthrough on these flanks held by regular Russian troops, which according to her makes ” very difficult “ the Russian presence in the city. She once again asserted that the Ukrainian defenders in Bakhmut itself still control “certain industrial facilities and infrastructure”.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian army on the eastern front, Serhi Tcherevaty, said on Sunday evening that his troops were carrying out counterattacks in and around Bakhmout. Russian forces “are trying to take over the whole city. Our units hold the defense of several buildings and a number of fortifications in the southwestern part [de Bakhmout] » he said on national television.
Violent clashes took place in other towns and villages in the east, including Marinka and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, according to a statement from the Ukrainian General Staff, which specifies that the Russians carried out four missile strikes and 45 airstrikes on Sunday. “Bahmut and Marinka remain the epicenter of hostilities”the statement said. “The battle for the city of Bakhmout continues. »