2023-05-18 18:35:11
Ukrainian forces can only enter Bakhmout in armored vehicles, and then have to walk several hundred meters to reach their positions. Albert Lores
REPORT – The last Ukrainian units would be about to withdraw from the city, to redeploy on its flanks. The Russian militia could find themselves trapped there.
Special envoy to Kostiantynivka
Inexorable progress by the Wagner militia in Bakhmout, but localized breakthroughs by the enemy forces on the flanks of the city, attempts at Ukrainian infiltration on the eastern bank of the Dnieper, resurgence of sabotage actions on Russian soil, as in the occupied territories of Crimea and Donbass, resumption of missile strikes against Kiev and other major cities: the tempo of operations has intensified for several days in Ukraine, fueling rumors of a potentially imminent counter-offensive. On March 10, Volodymyr Zelensky asserted that his army still needed time before seizing the initiative. His predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, for his part believes that the start of the counter-attack is only a matter of days.
On the edge of Bakhmout, besieged for ten months by Russian forces, the Ukrainian army would only hold about twenty devastated buildings. “Over there, it’s madnessnarrator Oleksander Yabchanka, member of the Gonor company, who left the city on Tuesday evening after forty-eight hours of uninterrupted fighting. The Russians know that we are in these buildings, they pound us non-stop, but that does not prevent us from liquidating as many as possible.” Cornered, the Ukrainian forces can enter and leave only under cover of the night, on board armored vehicles, and must then walk several hundred meters to reach their positions. “The fall of Bakhmout would not change muchobserves Oleksander, convinced that his defense has made it possible to fix the enemy while seriously denting his numbers. According to US intelligence, more than 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Bakhmout since December.
“Like rats in a mousetrap”
Over the past ten days, Ukrainian forces have retaken a few square kilometers on the northern and southern flanks of the city, taking advantage of a possible weakening of the Russian presence and giving hope for the beginning of a future encirclement. “We exhausted the opponent all winter longr, welcomes Sergeant “Barny”, of the 10e infantry brigade, which for several months has been defending a line of trenches located northwest of the city. They were hungry, they were cold and they lost a lot of men. The situation is ripe for us to start regaining ground with the idea of cutting their logistics lines.” General Oleksander Syrskyi, commander of the Ukrainian land forces, also estimated, Thursday during a visit near the front line, that “Wagner’s men entered Bakhmout like rats into a mousetrap.»
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: Has the counter-offensive started in Bakhmout or is it just a decoy?
But this heavily fortified sector of the Donbass is not necessarily the most conducive to a spectacular breakthrough. In recent weeks, Ukrainian forces have engaged in a war of nerves by “testing” Russian defenses in multiple areas of the front, which stretches 1,000 kilometers, including near Kherson, north of Melitopol, in the region of Vouhledar and the outskirts of Kupyansk. The Ukrainian army has taken advantage of this period to form a dozen new brigades, or about 40,000 men, some of which should be equipped with the heavy tanks promised at the end of January by NATO member countries. “We are still waiting for some of this material to arrive in the field“, nuance Yehor Cherniev, vice-president of the commission of national security, defense and intelligence at the Rada.
“Calls for caution”
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian authorities have sought to temper the hopes aroused by the prospect of the counter-offensive, estimating that this would probably not allow the liberation of some 100,000 km2 of territory (about 18% of the total area of the country) occupied by Russia. “These calls for caution may be part of an information war to deceive the enemyanalyze Yehor Cherniev, but they also respond to a complex reality. Many people in Ukraine and abroad hope that this counter-attack will allow us to drive out the occupier. Naturally, we understand that it is important to provide our partners with arguments to convince their public opinion of the usefulness of their support. That’s what we managed to do last fall with the counter-offensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions. But we must also be aware that the Russians have taken advantage of the last few months to prepare lines of defense, dig trenches and lay mines all along the front line. Retaking Crimea will certainly not be a walk in the park.»
#imminent #fall #Bakhmout #hands #Wagner