It was an apparently clear answer to a clear question: At the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, a reporter asked Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy whether the city of Bakhmut, which had been the subject of a year-long battle, was still controlled by Kiev: “Is Bakhmut still in Ukrainian hands ?The Russians say they took Bakhmut.” Zelensky’s answer: “I don’t think so” – and his further sentences seemed to confirm Bakhmut’s loss: “There is nothing, they destroyed everything. There are no more buildings. It’s a pity, it’s a tragedy, but for today Bakhmut is only in our hearts… Bakhmut is dead, and a lot of dead Russians… They came to us. Our defenders in Bakhmut, they did a great job and of course we appreciate them.”
A little later, however, Selensky’s spokesman Serhij Nykyforow rowed back via Facebook: “I don’t think so” was actually the answer to the question of whether the Russians had taken Bachmut. The Ukrainian general staff insisted in its daily report on Sunday morning that the battle for Bakhmut “is not stopping”. According to army spokeswoman Hanna Maljar the Ukrainians would have taken Bakhmut in a semi-encirclement and continued to control part of the city.
In other cases, too, Kiev had only confirmed losses with a delay
Of course, there are now actually two battles over the city in eastern Ukraine, which was once inhabited by 70,000 people. The first is around the city itself – the Russians, in the form of the Wagner mercenary group, had actually won it days ago. Geolocalized recordings showed as early as May 18 that Wagner mercenaries controlled 95 percent of Bakhmuts and Ukrainian units only a few streets and apartment buildings on the western outskirts of the city, the Kyiv Independent. It is quite possible that Wagner has now conquered these streets as well. On other occasions – such as in January when the city of Soledar fell to the Russians – Kiev has only admitted a loss with some delay.
Fully occupied? The head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin (with a Russian flag), claims that his troops control Bakhmut.
(Photo: Uncredited/dpa)
However, the military situation in the Bakhmut case is complicated. In return, Ukrainian units have launched successful counterattacks to the north, west and south-west of the city, according to unanimous information, including Russian information, and have recaptured several villages and a good 20 square kilometers in total. According to British military intelligence Apparently Moscow has hastily sent several battalions for reinforcements in the past few days.
A further advance of Russian forces in the direction of the nearest Ukrainian cities Kostyantynivka and above all to the main Ukrainian bases in Donbass – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk – therefore seems unlikely. However, Ukrainian experts, for their part, also classify the Ukrainian attacks as merely a local advance of units fighting in the region, and not as the start of a counter-offensive that has been expected for weeks, in which newly formed brigades equipped with Western technology are to be deployed.
The Institute for War Studies (ISW) analyzed, the full capture of Bakhmut announced by Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and then also by the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Kremlin is “purely symbolic, even if it is true”. Because the last blocks of houses that Russia now wants to have conquered are neither tactically nor strategically important. Russia’s units have not gained “operationally significant terrain to continue offensive operations” and are themselves still exposed to Ukrainian counterattacks. The ISW also doubts that Wagner could actually hand over Bachmut to the regular Russian army and withdraw in an orderly manner, as announced by Prigozhin.