2023-05-23 13:02:00
Russia claims control of Bakhmut, but Ukraine says it is fighting on. this is what we know
An aerial view shows destruction in the frontline town of Bakhmut amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, in this image released on May 21, 2023. (Photo: Press Service of the 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Separate Machanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via REUTERS).
Who controls the besieged city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine? It depends on who you ask.
According to Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian mercenary organization Wagner, his troops have taken “all the territories they promised to capture, down to the last square inch.”
But Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky says his forces are still fighting in Bakhmut.
The conflicting claims come following months of fighting in the city, where Russian soldiers have had to crush every inch of territory. This is the latest.
Who claims what?
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Monday that Ukrainian forces continue to occupy “a small part of the city” and advance on Bakhmut’s flanks.
On Tuesday, Maliar said the fighting had “decreased” but that Ukrainian forces had retained their small position in the city.
“The fighting continues in the suburbs. The enemy tries to take advantageous positions, but fails. In certain areas, the enemy is on the defensive,” he said.
But Russian officers tell a different story. In a video released on Saturday, Prigozhin stood next to his mercenaries and claimed to have taken full control of the city, saying he would hand it over to Russia at the end of May.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Wagner on “the culmination of the Artemovsk liberation operation,” the Soviet-Russian name for Bakhmut.
How important is Bakhmut?
Bakhmut lies in the northeast of the Donetsk region and has long been a target of Russian forces. Since last summer, the city has been a stone’s throw from the front lines.
But while Russia has invested vast amounts of manpower and resources in capturing the city, its military value has long been questioned by Western analysts, Ukrainian officials and even by Prigozhin himself, who claimed earlier this month that Bakhmut had “no strategic importance”.
Instead, Prigozhin claimed that his intention was to wear down the Ukrainian troops using tactics that he often likened to a “meat grinder”, sending wave following wave of his own soldiers into battle.
But these tactics came at a high and unsustainable cost. There are no official casualty figures, but earlier this year a NATO source told CNN they estimated that for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending Bakhmut, Russia lost five.
What is left of Bakhmut?
Although it is not known for sure if Bakhmut has fully “fallen” into the hands of Wagner’s troops, the new images make it clear that not much is left standing in the city.
The city was devastated by the Russian assault, which lasted for months, street by street, prompting comparisons with other cities that have borne the full brunt of Russian aggression, such as Grozny and Aleppo. In his G7 remarks, Zelensky said the images of Hiroshima in ruins he saw on a visit to the Japanese city “remind him a lot” of Bakhmut.
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