Ukraine war
Kyiv denies taking Bakhmut
Ukrainian soldiers fire a cannon near Bakhmut. photo
© LIBKOS/AP/dpa
Moscow is already handing out medals for the conquest of Bakhmut – but Kiev denies the fall of the city, which has been fought over for months. Bachmut has great symbolic power for both sides.
The fate of the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, which has been fought over for months, is still disputed between the two warring parties.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday contradicted claims from Moscow that the largely devastated city is now fully under Russian control. After meeting US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Zelenskyy said: “Bakhmut was not occupied by Russia today.” Previously, he himself had caused confusion with statements about the military situation.
A reporter asked Zelenskyy at the summit of the leading democratic industrial nations (G7) in Japan whether Bakhmut was still in Ukrainian hands. The Russians would have said that they had taken the city. The President of Ukraine replied with the phrase: “I think not.” The addition that Bachmut exists “only in our hearts” was seen by many as an admission that the city had actually fallen.
More than 70,000 people used to live in Bakhmut. Only a few civilians remain there today. The information could not be checked independently.
Later, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Army Group East, Serhiy Cherevatyj, provided interpretation assistance: “The president said it correctly: the city has practically been leveled to the ground.” However, the defenders continued to hold “fortifications and some premises to the southwest of the city”. According to Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar, the Ukrainians were even making further advances on Bakhmut’s flanks. The military has taken over several mountain ranges, making it difficult for the Russians to stay in the city.
Putin has medals distributed
Russia, on the other hand, continued to claim on Sunday that it had taken the city. On Saturday, the head of the Wagner mercenary force fighting in Bakhmut, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and then the Ministry of Defense announced the conquest. Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin congratulated the Wagner troops and their own army. The Russian armed forces would have guaranteed the necessary protection on the flanks. At the same time he announced: “All outstanding fighters will be honored with state awards.”
On Sunday, the first pictures of the awarding of orders appeared in the Russian media. Some awards were given directly in Bachmut, it said. After Kiev’s denials about the capture, Prigozhin claimed that there were not a single Ukrainian soldier left in the city. “The last one ran across the street in women’s clothes an hour and a half ago – and we shot him.” The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine will soon last 15 months. The Battle of Bakhmut is one of the worst battles.
emotional meaning
US President Biden avoided a statement on the sidelines of the G7 summit as to whether the city had been taken. However, the Russians suffered “more than 100,000 casualties” at Bakhmut. “It’s hard to catch up,” Biden said. “There aren’t many buildings left in Bakhmut. The city is pretty much devastated.” The fact that both Kiev and Moscow want to achieve success speaks for the emotional significance of the town. Selenskyj had declared it a “fortress” in winter.
For the course of the war, Bakhmut is rather incidental, as military experts on both sides concede. Bakhmut was part of the defensive perimeter east of the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk conurbation. By the fall, a breakthrough would have meant the danger of this conurbation being surrounded, since large Russian troops were still stationed in the north. After the forced retreat from the Kharkiv region, the Russians practically lost the second flank pincers to encircle Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
In addition, the Russian attackers could not break through the front, but only pushed in with high losses. The Ukrainians have meanwhile set up new defense lines. The Wagner mercenary unit has been so weakened that, according to Prigozhin, it is to be withdrawn to the rear.
Former Russian intelligence officer Igor Girkin scoffed: “The joint winter and spring campaign of the Russian army and Wagner to destroy our infantry on the Donetsk sector of the front has been successfully completed.” Girkin, who led the 2014 separatist uprising in Ukraine and generally advocates aggressive war against Ukraine, has for months criticized Russia’s war strategy as amateurish.