KYIV, Ukraine
The owner of Russia’s Wagner
Group military company claimed Wednesday that his troops have extended their
gains in the key Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut as fierce fighting continues
in the war’s longest battle.Ukrainian soldiers fire a self-propelled howitzer towards Russian positions near Bakhmut, the site of the heaviest battles, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 7, 2023.
Yevgeny Prigozhin said Wagner
troops have taken full control of the eastern part of Bakhmut. He claimed that
they now control all districts east of the Bakhmutka River that crosses the
city in the eastern Donetsk region. The center of Bakhmut is located west of
the river.
Neither Russian nor Ukrainian
officials commented on Prigozhin’s claim. The Institute for the Study of War, a
Washington-based think-tank that closely monitors the fighting in Ukraine, said
in its latest analysis that “Russian forces have likely captured the eastern
part of Bakhmut, east of the Bakhmutka River, following a controlled Ukrainian
withdrawal from eastern Bakhmut as of March 7.”
The Wagner Group has
spearheaded the
Russian offensive in Bakhmut that has lasted for six months and
reduced the city with a prewar population of more than 70,000 to a smoldering
wasteland.
Russian troops have enveloped
the city from three sides, leaving only a narrow corridor leading west. The
only highway west has been targeted by Russian artillery fire, forcing
Ukrainian forces defending the city to rely increasingly on country roads,
which are hard to use before the muddy ground dries.
Ukrainian authorities have
hailed the defenders of the “fortress Bakhmut,” and President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy vowed Monday not to retreat from Bakhmut after chairing a meeting
with his top generals.
For the Kremlin, capturing
Bakhmut is essential for achieving its stated goal of taking control of the
whole of Donetsk, one of the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally
annexed in September.
Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that the seizure of Bakhmut would allow Russia to
press its offensive deeper into the region.
In a blustery video statement
recorded near a landmark World War II T-34 tank monument from Bakhmut,
Prigozhin said that the capture of the city would allow the Russian military to
exploit the success and push deeper into the Donbas — the industrial region of
eastern Ukraine that Russia claims — to make “the entire world shudder.”
But Western officials have
emphasized that even if Ukrainian troops eventually retreat from Bakhmut, its
capture will not have strategic significance or change the course of the
conflict.
The Ukrainian military has
already strengthened defensive lines west of Bakhmut to block the Russian
advance, including in the nearby town of Chasiv Yar that sits on a hill a few
kilometers west. Further west are Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the heavily
fortified Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk.
The ISW observed that, in terms
of the wider war, Russian forces are unlikely to capitalize on the possible
capture of Bakhmut where they have relied on small units for urban combat.
“The continuing devolution of
Russian force structure towards small assault detachments using simplified
tactics, combined with mounting losses among the most effective Russian troops,
will likely greatly limit the ability of Russian forces to properly exploit any
paths of advance opened by the capture of Bakhmut,” the ISW said.
Russia is also likely short of
the mechanized forces it would need to push on from Bakhmut, it added.
As the fighting raged in the
east, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrived in the
Ukrainian capital early Wednesday. The U.N. said that he is scheduled to meet
with Zelenskyy later in the day “to discuss the continuation of the Black Sea
Grain Initiative in all its aspects, as well as other pertinent issues.”
That deal allows Ukraine to
export grain from its Black Sea ports and permits Russia to export food and
fertilizers.
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