Russia declares encirclement of Ukrainian Bakhmut
2023.03.03 12:26
Russia declares encirclement of Ukrainian Bakhmut
By Kristina Sobol
Budrigannews.com – On Friday, Russian mercenaries and troops fired artillery on the last routes to the besieged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, moving Moscow closer to its first major victory in half a year after the bloodiest battles of the war. Bakhmut is under siege.
According to the head of Russia’s Wagner private army, the destroyed city was now almost completely surrounded, and Ukraine’s troops could only access one road.
Reuters observed intense Russian shelling of Bakhmut’s western exit routes, possibly in an effort to prevent Ukrainian forces from entering and exiting the city. Russian tank fire damaged a bridge in the nearby town of Khromove.
A sign that Ukraine was not yet ready to surrender the city was the fact that additional Ukrainian troops were moving toward the frontline and working to repair damaged roads. Ukrainians were making new trenches for defensive positions to the west.
After mobilizing hundreds of thousands of reservists last year, Russia’s first major prize in a costly winter offensive would be a victory in Bakhmut, which had a population of approximately 70,000 prior to the war. It states that it would serve as a stepping stone toward the important war goal of capturing the Donbass region.
The huge losses in the city, according to Ukraine, could determine the course of the war. However, the city has little intrinsic strategic value. In the second half of 2022, it regained large areas of territory, but its forces have now been on the defensive for three months.
“Units of the private military company Wagner have practically surrounded Bakhmut,” Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video that Reuters determined was shot on a rooftop in a village 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) north of Bakhmut’s center. Prigozhin was wearing a combat uniform.
He stated, “There is only one exit.” The clamps are tightening.
He pleaded with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, President of Ukraine, to direct a retreat from Bakhmut in order to spare his soldiers’ lives. A grey-bearded older man and two boys—three captured Ukrainians—asked to be allowed to return home as the camera panted.
In a video that was shared on social media, the commander of a Ukrainian drone unit operating in Bakhmut, Robert Brovdi, also known as “Madyar,” stated that the military had instructed his unit to immediately withdraw. He claimed that it had taken him 110 days to fight there.
On Monday, when Reuters finally got to the streets of Bakhmut, it found a few civilians and some stray dogs wandering around while buildings were on fire and gunfire and explosions continued unabated.
In Bakhmut, both sides claim to have suffered devastating losses. Even though the situation has gotten worse this week, Kyiv has stated that its forces are still there.
Ukrainian NV Radio was informed by Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy commander in the National Guard of Ukraine, that the situation was “critical” and that fighting was ongoing “round the clock.”
They do not take into account their losses in the assault attempt to take the city. Our troops in Bakhmut are tasked with inflicting as many casualties on the adversary as possible. “The enemy loses hundreds of lives for every meter of Ukrainian land,” he stated.
“As much ammunition as possible is needed by us. We don’t have enough ammunition to kill all the Russians here.
After Moscow reported a number of drone attacks on targets deep within Russia, followed by what it claimed was an armed cross-border raid on Thursday, Russia has been alarmed about its own potential vulnerabilities these past few days.
On Friday, President Vladimir Putin was seen instructing his Security Council to intensify “anti-terrorism measures.”
Zelenskiy, on the other hand, paid wounded soldiers visits at a Lviv military hospital. One of them apologized for being unable to stand up while shaking the president’s hand from his bed. That’s fine,” Zelenskiy declared. You will rise at the appropriate time.”
Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, was scheduled to meet with Joe Biden, the American President, at the White House to talk about giving Ukraine more military aid. The Leopard tanks that Germany promised to make in January are expected to form the foundation of a new Ukrainian armored force.
While Scholz has overseen a significant shift in policy from a nation that was Russia’s largest energy customer on the eve of the war, he has been criticized by some Western allies for taking a cautious public stance regarding arming Ukraine.
Oleksii Makeiev, Ukraine’s ambassador in Berlin, stated that Germany was now taking a more active role in arming Ukraine: We are now strategically planning in accordance with what is required and what can be delivered, rather than just discussing the current situation. This is what has changed over the past few months.”
Washington will declare its most recent military guide bundle worth $400 million, basically including ammo and heavily clad vehicles. Since the invasion, Ukraine has received nearly $32 billion worth of weapons from the United States.
Since Russia invaded its pro-Western neighbor a year ago, tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers on both sides are believed to have been killed.
Kyiv is accused of posing a security threat by Moscow, which claims to have annexed nearly a fifth of Ukraine. The invasion, according to Ukraine and its allies, was an unprovoked war to conquer land.
For the first time since the invasion, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in person on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in India.
According to U.S. officials, Blinken instructed Lavrov to end the war and urged Moscow to reinstate the nuclear arms control agreement it had suspended last week.
Blinken said on Friday at a forum in the Indian capital that Russia must not be allowed to wage war without consequences because doing so would “send a message to would-be aggressors everywhere that they may be able to get away with it too.”
