In Bakhmout, the Ukrainian soldiers are asking for more resources. “The enemy has a huge advantage in terms of artillery”, Yuri Kryjbersky, a 37-year-old officer, explained to AFP at the end of January: “You can sit in a cellar in Vassioukivka (a village north of Bakhmout also on the front line, Editor’s note) for half an hour and hear 40 shells go by”.
The other Russian advantage is the number, which impresses this Ukrainian sergeant responding to the nom de guerre of Alkor: “We shoot, we shoot and we shoot but after five minutes, 20 additional men arrive in front of us”.
Moscow and Wagner are notably accused of using ill-prepared recruits as “cannon fodder”, an assertion rejected by Russian military analyst Alexander Khramchikhine, who sees it as “Western propaganda”.
However, kyiv also suffered heavy losses. Major Volodymyr Leonov, of the Ukrainian territorial defense forces, claims to have had a dozen wounded in his ranks in three days in January. And five of his soldiers, killed, could not be recovered.
“Our guys are motivated, everyone has come to fight”, assures the major to AFP: “But when there is no artillery support, when there is no armor , you just get shot at, like in a shooting range”.