Kyiv (AFP) – Ukraine pledged on Monday to bolster its defences in frontline Bakhmut, after reports that Kyiv was withdrawing from the city that’s become a symbolic prize in the war.
The eastern Ukrainian city has been virtually flattened in what has become the longest and bloodiest battle since Russia’s more than year-long invasion.
Ukraine has reported an increasingly difficult situation around Bakhmut in recent days and some analysts said its forces may have initiated a strategic retreat.
But President Volodymyr Zelensky met with top commanders Monday and his office said they were in favour of “continuing the defensive operation and further strengthening our positions in Bakhmut.”
Neither side has said how many troops they have lost in the battle, with observers saying both Moscow and Kyiv are trying to exhaust each other.
Russia has appeared determined to take Bakhmut at all costs, despite analysts saying the city has little strategic value. The Ukrainian military said on Sunday it had repelled “more than 130″ Russian attacks in the vicinity of Bakhmut in a single day, saying Moscow forces were trying to encircle the city.
The US-based War Research Institute said Ukrainian forces may have begun a strategic withdrawal from the city.
“Ukrainian forces are likely to conduct a limited tactical withdrawal in Bakhmut, but it is too early to assess Ukraine’s intentions to withdraw completely from the city,” read a recently published analytical note.
As the fighting rages, the Russian mercenary group leading the Battle of Bakhmut his Wagner leader laments that his army lacks ammunition.
Evgeny Prigozhin claimed late Sunday that Russian reservists destined for deployment in Bakhmut had been diverted and the ammunition promised by the army had arrived several days late. “I’m trying to figure out what the reason is. Regular bureaucracy or treason,” Prigogine said on social media.
A Kremlin-affiliated businessman, Prigozhin experienced great influence during the Moscow Offensive and regularly competed with the Russian army.
Ukraine is also facing fresh airstrikes, with the air force saying it shot down 13 of his demolition drones launched overnight from southern Russia.
The Air Force said in a telegram that Russian forces had launched 15 Iranian-made Shahed drones, 13 of which were shot down by Ukrainian forces.
Russian Defense Minister in Mariupol
South of the battlefield, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited the port city of Mariupol, which Moscow captured last spring after a long siege. Shoigu is one of the top Russian officials visiting eastern Ukraine.
He visited the devastated city to oversee its reconstruction.
Mariupol on the Sea of Azov fell to Russian forces last May and has been largely cut off from outside control ever since.
In Moscow, Russia’s FSB security service claimed to have thwarted an assassination attempt on controversial pro-Kremlin tycoon Konstantin Malofeyev.
The FSB has accused a Russian-founded sabotage group of encroaching on the border from Ukraine last week. The assassination has been claimed to be an “act of terrorism” similar to the murder of far-right thinker and Kremlin supporter daughter Daria Dugina last August.
