“Heavy fighting” with Russian forces is underway for the center of Bakhmout, in eastern Ukraine, said Monday the commander of Ukrainian ground troops, Oleksandr Syrsky, information also confirmed on the Russian side.
“Assault detachments (of the Russian paramilitary group) Wagner are attacking from several directions trying to break through the defense of our troops and advance towards the central quarters,” said General Syrsky quoted by the press center of the army.
“The closer we are to the city center, the harder the fighting is,” echoed Evgeni Prigojine, boss of Wagner whose men are on the front line of the fighting for Bakhmout that the Russian army has been trying to take since the summer. at the cost of heavy losses.
Mr. Syrsky, however, assured that the Ukrainian troops “inflicted significant losses on the enemy”. “With the fire of artillery, tanks (…) all attempts to seize the city are repelled”, he argued.
The city Bakhmout, which had 70,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion launched in February 2022, has for months been the epicenter of fighting on the eastern front in Ukraine.
If this city largely razed by the bombings has become one of the symbols of the fierce Ukrainian resistance to the invasion, its strategic importance is however disputed by experts.
In this context, some in Ukraine wonder about the need for the forces of kyiv to fight for this city whose defense implies heavy losses also for the Ukrainian army.
Losses which are likely to increase further if the Russian troops manage to encircle Bakhmout when they have already succeeded in cutting off several important routes for the supply of Ukrainian soldiers.
Bakhmout could fall “in the coming days,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned last week.
For the Ukrainian command, it is a question of holding Bakhmout as long as possible, so that Russia uses there a maximum of men, armaments and ammunition and that it finds itself weakened when Ukraine will launch its counter- offensive.