Valentina and her husband Anatoliy carry bottles of water from a working tap in a nearly destroyed building on October 12, 2022 in Bakhmut, Donetsk, Ukraine. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)
Even as it loses ground in Ukraine’s southern Kherson and northeastern Luhansk regions, Russian forces have been making slow but steady progress in their assault on the eastern city of Bakhmut, aided largely by Wagner mercenaries, or private military contractors. .
Bakhmut, located in the Donetsk region, is controlled by the Ukrainians but has been shelled by Russian artillery for months. If Russian forces managed to capture the city, it would allow them to further bombard the population centers of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Russian forces moved further away from those cities when Ukraine recaptured Kharkiv and much of the region last month.
“The AFU continue their advances on the eastern side of Bakhmut,” Semyon Pegov, a pro-Russian analyst who publishes under the name WarGonzo, said on Telegram on Friday. “According to some reports, AFU units [Fuerzas Armadas de Ucrania] they are leaving the area in small groups under the threat of being surrounded. If that’s really the case, we’ll find out soon.”
CNN cannot independently verify the claim that Ukraine was withdrawing forces from Bakhmut, and Ukrainian officials have not commented on the matter. Andrey Marochko, an official from the Russian-backed Luhansk People’s Republic, also echoed that claim, as did TASS, the Russian state news agency.
Pegov said that in the last week, Wagner’s mercenaries were able to capture the towns of Zakhtseve and Vesela Dolyna, southeast of Bakhmut. On Friday, the UK Ministry of Defense said they might now also be disputing the towns of Opytne and Ivanhrad, south of Bakhmut.
CNN cannot independently verify those claims, but they would mean that Russia is forming a more complete semi-circle around Bakhmut.
“Wagner’s troops pushed the AFU from a major road junction northeast of Bakhmut,” Pegov said on Wednesday.
Ukrainian officials agree that Bakhmut is being fiercely contested:
- Bakhmut has been the target of two airstrikes, Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration, said on Wednesday. Bakhmut is in the region of him.
- The “most intense situation” was in Bakhmut, and the Ukrainian military had repelled “more than 30 attacks,” Serhii Hayday, head of the neighboring Luhansk region, said on Sunday. Hayday has spent a lot of time in Bakhmut.