Nicholas Tonev (in Kramatorsk)
modified to
7:18 p.m., February 13, 2023
After having retreated for several weeks, the Russian army now wants to break this dynamic and regain ground. Dreaded for several weeks by kyiv, the Russian counter-offensive has become reality in the Donbass. In the region’s capital, Kramatorsk, still in Ukrainian hands, military activity is in full swing.
Very close to the front line, the Ukrainian army receives arms and human reinforcements in the city, to face the Russian pressure. Because, in the adversary camp, the Russians, supported by the Wagner group, send many soldiers on the ground. The latter would have succeeded in taking the village of Krasna Hora this Sunday, a few kilometers from Kramatorsk. Proof that the fighting is intensifying and advancing, several missiles have hit the city in recent hours.
“It’s the panic”
But it is in Bakhmout, a small town not far from the regional capital, that the battle is most impressive. Anything that serves to destroy is used. The damage is significant, the explosions permanent, frightening the inhabitants still present in the aid centers. “The planes, when they fly, it’s horror”, underlines a resident. “It’s panic, because you don’t know where the bomb is going to fall,” she continues at the microphone of Europe 1.
From now on, access to Bakhmout is forbidden to civilians, in particular because the Ukrainian army fears the infiltration of Russian elements there. Proof that the situation is extremely tangent in this city and in the whole region. Because, for kyiv, it is absolutely necessary to keep the locality out of the reach of the Russians, at the risk of putting Kramatorsk, the regional capital, under the fire of Russian artillery.