Ukrainian soldiers are waiting for the right moment to attack. Then they received crucial intelligence: Russian mercenaries on the other side of the front line outside Bakhmut were about to rotate and be replaced by other soldiers.
It’s time to leave. “We were all excited,” said an infantryman who identified himself by the codename Face, following military protocol.
Ukrainian soldiers were told to have their kits ready, making sure they had plenty of grenades and plenty of ammunition. Colonel Andriy Biletsky, brigade commander, said: “We consider the change of shift to be the biggest weakness of the enemy.
It was the morning of May 6, the start of three days of fighting on the outskirts of Bakhmut, that shifted the momentum to the fiercest battle of the war. Soldiers from Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade fought the Russians on forested belts where trees grew like scorched matches. They stormed into trenches littered with corpses. They followed the armored personnel carriers through the clearings as the two sides engaged in heavy gunfire.
In the tornado of explosions, soldiers said, every yard gained felt like a mile away.
But when the three-day conflict ended, Ukraine had regained a swath of land about 1.8 miles wide and a mile and a half deep just south of the village of Ivanivske, on the outskirts of Bakhmut.
According to the military, although the territory captured was small, the Ukrainians built on their success, regaining more than 12 square miles north and south of the city. Those achievements represent a striking change in a place where the Ukrainians have been lagging for months and a potential blow to the Russian war effort that has made Bakhmut the main strategic prize. within their reach.
But even as Ukrainian forces fought to retake key areas around Bakhmut, Russian forces worked relentlessly for months to capture the city center.
On Saturday, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner paramilitary group, said his mercenaries had seized the remaining ruins of the city itself, blocks they did not yet control, a statement. which the Ukrainians quickly protested. Even if it were true, Ukraine’s capture of the north and south of the city shows that the long battle for Bakhmut is not over.
Ukrainian and British officials said on Saturday that Moscow was racing to send more troops to fortify lines around the city. Such a redeployment could help Russia reverse Ukraine’s recent gains, but it could also benefit Ukraine as it prepares to counterattack by weakening Russian forces elsewhere along the border. matrix.
The account of the three-day clash earlier this month on the outskirts of Bakhmut was based on an extensive interview with Colonel Biletsky near the front, the soldiers who took part in the attack, video of those soldiers was shown. Record in real time by body camera and more videos that brigade releases afterwards.
Russian military bloggers have covered the retreat in the area, and military analysts have confirmed the location of the battlefield footage.
Colonel Biletsky said dozens of Russians were killed in the final day of the battle and many more were taken prisoner. His brigade also lost soldiers over the course of three days, he said. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has released the exact number of casualties.
The 3rd separate assault brigade, officially formed in the fall, was sent to Bakhmut this winter to help secure the remaining road into the city, after Russian forces nearly cut it off.
It is led by Colonel Biletsky, a former extreme nationalist politician and founder of the Azov regiment, a group that was once part of the Ukrainian National Guard before the war and is now recognized integrated into the country’s military, with little or no political leanings.
The number of Ukrainian units engaged in combat around Bakhmut is kept secret for operational security reasons, but the Ukrainian military says dozens of clashes are now taking place each day with units from a caravan. group. The 3rd Separate Assault Brigade said on Thursday that its troops had advanced about half a mile further and would continue to attempt to advance on Friday.
No two battles in war are exactly alike. They are shaped by the contours of the land, the strength of the opposing forces, the weapons available, the weather, and a host of other factors. The fighting outside Ivanivske was only a small doorway into intense fighting in and around Bakhmut, where Russian forces continued to wage a scorching campaign inside the city limits.
But the three-day battle is a stark example of how Ukraine hopes to exploit the very public divide between the three main Russian forces fighting in Bakhmut: the private military company Wagner, loyal to the Yevgeny V. PrigozhinChechen militia loyal to Ramzan Kadyrov and the regular army.
It is also a reminder that reclaiming land from an entrenched enemy is a brutal undertaking fought in the immediate vicinity. Hanna Maliar, Deputy Defense Minister, said: “You need to understand the cost of this step. “It is extremely difficult to carry out combat missions there, because the enemy has concentrated a very large force.”
Colonel Biletsky dismissed the notion that the Russians were ill-equipped as “more TikTok propaganda than fact”.
“The enemy is ready,” he said. “They are personally equipped, well armed, they have good means of communication, good armored vehicles and very good drone systems.”
In recent days, Ukrainian warplanes have controlled only a small corner inside the city limits of Bakhmut, roughly the size of Central Park, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials and soldiers. They were being attacked directly and bombarded by artillery from Russian positions in the high hills beside the ruins.
Ukrainian officials say the only way to ease the pressure is to drive the Russians out of positions around the city.
“The first task is to repel the enemy on the flanks of Bakhmut,” said Colonel Biletsky. “We use three types of maneuvers: infiltration, frontal attack and redirection.”
When the Ukrainian commanders noticed that the Russians were rotating in new units, replacing the Wagner mercenaries with soldiers from the 72nd separate Russian Motorized Rifle Brigade, they decided to try to attack. the other side unexpectedly.
“We attacked as quickly as possible, immediately trying to get behind the enemy’s front lines,” said Colonel Biletsky.
Before dawn on May 6, unit commanders gathered and received orders: Cross a distance of about 500 meters from the Russian front line southwest of the village of Ivanivske to the Russian second line of defense. And do it quietly.
This would allow them to avoid the main defensive positions of the enemy and force the Russians to move their positions in response to the threat.
To maintain the element of surprise, the Ukrainians decided not to use artillery. The infantrymen following the armored vehicles moved quickly to cover the scorched ground, the danger of being detected by Russian drones was always present.
When the Ukrainian soldiers reached the second line of trenches, the Russians realized what was happening and the fighting was fierce and chaotic. Soldiers described moving quickly to trenches, turning even when they weren’t sure what they would find – and often facing opposition. They also have to clear the Russian positions that are now behind them.
But by the end of the first day, they had held the flank.
Then they waited.
Colonel Biletsky said that they wanted to make the Russians believe that the small flank offensive was the goal of the operation, so they did not try to attack on the second day. Instead, the troops launched reconnaissance and artillery attacks against enemy reserves trying to get in.
During the quiet hours, they talk, eat, and make sinister jokes.
“Who were you before the war?” one soldier asked another in a video shared by the brigade. “A fireman,” replied the other soldier. “I used to save people, but now I kill them.”
The battle continues on Tuesday morning at 5am
The New York Times viewed a video that the Ukrainian military claimed was captured by soldiers in the battle that day and confirmed its location. It shows armored vehicles rushing through the first line of defense under gunfire. The infantrymen jumped out, opening fire as they got out of their vehicles.
“Go around to the left, you are first,” one soldier ordered in one video. “Go!”
At this point, the soldiers said, the only way to destroy the Russians was through the bloody trenches, not sure if the Russians had fled, were hiding or were still fighting.
“Come close! Move in!” shouted a soldier as they barged into a Russian dugout.Something exploded near the Ukrainians. Come back!” shouted another soldier.
The Ukrainians then approached the Russian bunker again and threw a grenade, silenced it, according to the footage.
After wiping out the first line – a defensive network spread over an area about two miles wide – they had to capture the second line, where there were even more Russian troops, according to soldiers and commanders.
They said it was like that for hours. Videos filmed by Ukrainian soldiers show trenches littered with corpses of Russian soldiers.
By the end of the third day, they had surrounded the surviving Russians.
“Our soldiers shouted for them to surrender,” said the soldier known as Face. Some have laid down their weapons. Others fled. Still others fought and were killed.
Face is pulling a damaged Ukrainian armored vehicle from the battlefield, smiling as he stops for coffee the day after the clash ended.
He was happy that the Ukrainians left with far fewer soldiers killed.
“According to military doctrine, the army that counterattacks will have more casualties. “But that’s not true. We have the opposite. We lose, but they lose many times more.”
Riley Mellen and Dmitriy Khavin contributed reporting. Nataliia Novosolova And Anastasia Kuznietsova Contributing research.
