in the heart of besieged Bakhmout

At the heart of the fighting. These images are rare. This Ukrainian battalion is trying to save one of its own, hit by Russian fire. Eventually, he will manage to be evacuated. “Our country is in so much grief, how many people are dying as heroes, how many civilians are suffering, look everywhere around you, everything is destroyed”, says Bayraktar, air defense system operator. The mission of these Ukrainian riflemen: to prevent the Russian forces from taking Bakhmout. In the city, fighting has been raging since this summer.

The symbol of a war of attrition

The front hardly changes any more and the city has become the symbol of an endless war of attrition. “The situation has never been so tense. The enemy failed to surround us, so they are concentrating all their efforts on the city”indicates Philosophe, deputy commander of the 2^e Rifle Battalion of the Ukrainian 93rd Brigade. According to these soldiers, Russia would not hesitate to use chemical weapons in Bakhmout. Several of them explain that a strong smell of chlorine would have spread last week after an explosion and that, afterwards, it had become more difficult to breathe.