Russia said on Thursday that it was blocking Ukrainian forces in Bakhmout and preventing any reinforcements from entering it, hinting that it was about to take this eastern city, the epicenter of fighting since last summer.
In a comment to AFP, the Ukrainian army immediately denied it, ensuring that it continued to supply its troops in Bakhmout and inflict “mad losses” on the enemy there on a daily basis.
AFP could not verify these statements from an independent source.
The leader of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, Evguéni Prigojine, whose fighters are on the front line in Bakhmout, told him that it was still “premature” to speak of a complete encirclement.
A city of some 70,000 inhabitants before the invasion, the city is now almost totally destroyed.
Because of the length of the battle and the heavy losses suffered by both sides, Bakhmout has become the symbol of the struggle between Russians and Ukrainians for control of the industrial region of Donbass, Moscow’s stated objective.
“Wagner’s assault groups are continuing high-intensity military operations to push back the enemy from the central neighborhoods of Artyomovsk” (the Soviet name for Bakhmout used by the Russians), the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday, in a statement. his daily report.
“Airborne Troops [russes] support the assault groups on the flanks, blocking the sending of Ukrainian army reserves into the city and the possibility of a withdrawal [de Bakhmout] enemy units,” he continued.
Contacted by AFP, the Ukrainian army denied any blocking of its soldiers.
“We can communicate fully with our troops, both through technical means, but also to deliver food, ammunition, medicine, everything necessary, and to recover our wounded,” said Sergiï Tcherevaty, a Ukrainian military spokesman.
Apocalyptic decor
“Our forces maintain their defense by inflicting mad casualties on the enemy on a daily basis,” he added, adding that Ukrainian artillery was “constantly” conducting counter-battery fire on Russian guns so that they would not could not concentrate their fire on the supply lines towards Bakhmout.
Mr. Prigojine took more precautions than the Russian army, in a message published by his press service on Telegram.
“The Ukrainian army continues to bring reinforcements and transfer them to the city. Difficult and bloody fighting is underway, so it is premature to talk about a complete encirclement of Bakhmout,” he said.
“Over 80% of Bakhmout is under our control, the other parts are resisting fiercely,” he added.
In recent days, Ukrainian forces appear to have lost ground in central Bakhmut, where several Russian war correspondents have visited, showing in their reports a devastated city with an apocalyptic backdrop.
On Monday, the head of the Russian occupation of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, released a video showing him in central Bakhmut, saying the city was being “liberated”.
Russian troops, which have already cut off several Ukrainian supply routes in recent weeks, appear to be advancing through the center of the city in furious urban fighting, again fueling speculation of an upcoming Ukrainian withdrawal.
” Nowhere to go “
In the village of Kalynivka, a few kilometers west of Bakhmout, Vira Petrova, 71, says she is not afraid of the fighting approaching her home.
“We have already been bombed. Half of the kitchen roof was destroyed. Our neighbour’s roof was destroyed,” she told AFP, pointing to her damaged house.
Its street, lined with cherry blossoms and abandoned houses, has only about twenty inhabitants. But there was no question for Vira Petrova to imagine leaving the scene, even if the Russians would advance.
“I have nowhere to go. I cannot afford to leave”, she explains, like many inhabitants of the region. “If my house is destroyed, I will live in my basement”.
At the beginning of March, when fears of a fall of Bakhmout, the longest and deadliest battle since the outbreak of the Russian invasion in February 2022, were already mounting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had ruled out any withdrawal of his troops.
kyiv assures that its resistance for months in Bakhmout has made it possible to fix a place on the front and destroy a large number of Russian troops.