In the months-long battle for the city of Bakhmut, the Ukrainian army says it is continuing to withstand the attacks of the Russian invaders. The Ukrainian general staff said on Sunday that the day before “more than 130 enemy attacks”. especially in Bakhmut, Kupyansk, Lyman and Avdiivka. Army spokesman Sergey Cherevaty said the situation in the eastern Ukrainian industrial city of Bakhmut was “difficult but under control”.
According to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, the Ukrainian army even managed to inflict heavy casualties on Russian fighters in Bakhmut. “Russian casualties are up to 500 killed and wounded every day.”, Resnikov told the “Bild am Sonntag”. Bachmut has been contested since last summer. The fighting continued over the weekend. “The enemy is continuing its attempts to encircle Bakhmut,” the Ukrainian general staff said, referring to the repelled attacks there and in other eastern Ukrainian cities.
Reznikov emphasized that taking Bakhmut by Russia would have little strategic impact. “If they take Bakhmut, it will mean nothing for Donbass”, he told the newspaper. Rather, the city is a “symbolic place” for Moscow. In view of the use of the private mercenary group Wagner in the fight for Bakhmut, Resnikov spoke of a “kind of competition between different Kremlin towers”. The defense minister added that Russia was pursuing “meat grinder tactics” in Bakhmut, with “soldiers being just cannon fodder”.
According to the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Ukrainian army is unlikely to be surrounded in Bakhmut. The high command “signaled that it would probably withdraw rather than risk being surrounded,” the ISW said.
