KIEV, UKRAINE (Reuters) – Russian forces have made progress in a campaign to capture the town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, the focal point of the war’s longest ground battle, but their offensive overpowered Britain’s main military. It’s hard to keep up without casualties, an official said on Saturday
The British Ministry of Defense said in its latest assessment that Kremlin-controlled paramilitary units of Wagner and his group have occupied much of eastern BaKhmut, with the river that runs through the city now being the front line of the fighting.
The mining town is in Donetsk Oblast, one of four regions in Ukraine illegally annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin last year. Russian forces launched an operation to overwhelm Bakhmut in his August, and both sides suffered staggering casualties.
Ukrainian forces and supply lines remain vulnerable to “continued Russian attempts to overtake the defenders from the north and south,” with troops of the Wagner Group trying to approach them with pincer fire, it said. the UK Foreign Office said.
However, the ministry added, it will be “highly challenging” for Wagner’s soldiers to push ahead because Ukraine has destroyed key bridges over the river, while Ukrainian sniper fire from fortified buildings further west has made the thin strip of open ground in the city’s center “a killing zone.”
Russian military bloggers and other pro-Kremlin Telegram accounts claimed Friday that Russian forces had entered a metal processing plant in northwestern Bakhmut. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, also referenced geolocated footage showing Russian forces within 800 meters of the AZOM plant, a heavily built-up and fortified complex.
The institute reported in its Friday night assessment that Moscow’s apparent focus on capturing the plant, rather than opting for a “wider encirclement of western Bakhmut” by attempting to take nearby villages, was likely to bring a further wave of Russian casualties.
Ukraine’s ground forces on Saturday signaled their intention to hold out in Bakhmut, announcing on Facebook that their top officer was personally overseeing “the most important sectors of the front” to deny Moscow a long-awaited battlefield victory.
The post did not clarify whether Col. General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who was in Bakhmut at the time of the Facebook post, has made several visits to cities and other frontline hotspots in eastern Ukraine over the past month.
Meanwhile, repair work continued across Ukraine on Saturday after a massive Russian missile and drone strike two days ago killed six people and left hundreds of thousands without heat and electricity. was given.
Ukraine’s state-owned power grid operator said four provinces were experiencing power problems after a barrage of 80 Russian missiles and a handful of drone explosions hitting homes and critical infrastructure across the country.
In a Facebook post, Uklenergo said planned blackouts continued in parts of Kharkiv and Zhytomyr, Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv regions. The company added that the situation in Zhytomyr is particularly difficult because some customers are still without electricity.
According to meeting transcripts released by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Gram said the weapons Norway planned to send included rocket launchers and ammunition for NASAMS anti-aircraft systems.
Reznikov said the Ukrainian military had successfully used some of the same weapons to shoot down the drones and missiles that Russia rained down on Ukraine on Thursday.
