Ukraine war
ISW sees Ukrainian advances around Bakhmut
A Ukrainian soldier radios with his team before firing a Bohdana self-propelled howitzer at Russian positions near Bakhmut. photo
© Evgeniy Maloletka/AP/dpa
The battles over Bachmut have recently become fierce again. Ukraine is probably benefiting from the fact that Russia has moved its troops to other sectors of the front.
According to Western experts, the Ukrainian armed forces have made considerable progress in their counter-offensive in the area of the city of Bakhmut, which has been fought over for months. They also continued operations on at least three other fronts, the Washington-based Institute for War Studies (ISW) wrote in its latest report. The ISW sees weaknesses in the Russian army in the south of the Ukraine.
Bakhmut, a town with a population of more than 70,000, was captured and completely destroyed by Russian troops in May after months of fighting. Footage showed that the Ukrainians made significant tactical gains near the village of Jahidne, two kilometers north of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that the Ukrainian forces were conducting offensive operations north and south of Bakhmut. According to the commander of the land forces, Colonel-General Olexander Syrskyj, they regained control of unspecified previously lost positions in the Bakhmut area.
The institute also wrote that the Russian army appears to have moved its entire eastern combat group to southern Ukraine. This suggests that the Russian defense lines in the south are fragile. “The Russian positions in southern Ukraine, while powerful, are not impregnable,” the ISW wrote.
British military experts are also of the opinion that, despite intensified fighting, the occupying Russian army has few reserves to reinforce the sector around Bakhmut. This emerged from the daily intelligence report from the Ministry of Defense in London on Saturday. Accordingly, the fighting there in the past seven days was again among the fiercest on the entire front, after it had temporarily subsided in June.
“The Russian defenders are most likely wrestling with low morale, ragtag forces and a limited ability to find and hit Ukrainian artillery,” the statement said. However, the Russian leadership sees it as politically unacceptable to give up Bakhmut, which was one of the few Russian territorial gains in the past twelve months.
The British Ministry of Defense has published daily information on the course of the war since the start of the Russian war of aggression 16 months ago. Moscow accuses London of disinformation.