Ukrainian troops are conducting attacks near the eastern city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian commanders said on Friday, in the fighting that has only slightly changed the front lines but is revealing cracks, confusion and alarm among the Russian forces in the war.
Pro-war Russian bloggers were quick to claim that Ukraine’s long-awaited counter-offensive had begun, but Ukrainian officials downplayed the level of progress and described them in local terms. than. Ukrainian soldiers breached Russian lines south of Bakhmut on Wednesday, they said, and then took advantage of that opening, attacking Russian forces near the city and threatening Russia’s flanks to the west. north and south. ONE videotapes appears to have been first posted by Ukrainian news channel Channel 24, which said it was powered by Ukraine’s 77th Mobile Brigade, showing areas north of Bakhmut on fire on Friday evening.
Bakhmut has been at the heart of the war in eastern Ukraine for months: a near-crumbling city where tens of thousands of soldiers are believed to have died, and the only place on the front hundreds of miles from Russia. repeatedly attacked. That changed this week, as Ukraine put Russian forces on the defensive, giving them a difficult strategic decision about fortifying the city and sparking a new round of criticism among its commanders. Russia.
Video released on Friday by Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade shows soldiers pouring out of armored personnel carriers and attacked a Russian trench. “Forward, forward!” a soldier screams in the video, which was captured by the helmet camera. The soldiers dived to take cover as Russian warplanes threw grenades, then ran forward and threw their own grenades into the Russian bunker. Video cannot be independently verified.
“The defensive phase of the battle for Bakhmut is coming to an end,” said Andriy Biletsky, the last commander of the brigade, along with other units of the Ukrainian Army. Now, he said, Ukraine will increase pressure on the Russians from the north and south.
“We’ve gone a little further on our flanks,” said one drone operator on the Adam Tactical Team, who only asked to be identified by his nickname, Sem. In an interview on Friday, he described an overnight seesaw battle south of Bakhmut in which Russian soldiers tried to retake a position but were repelled by a Ukrainian shelling. .
Another Ukrainian soldier, who had a sign called Bandit, said that the sound of artillery and rockets echoing around the hills near Bakhmut was “all of our fire directed towards Russia.”
“We’re still learning about the enemy and want to see what he’s doing in this situation,” he said, adding that Ukrainian troops were checking Russian positions and “cleaning up the perimeter.” forest belt to another forest belt”.
The retreat from Bakhmut, a city of no strategic importance but which has become a symbolic reward, would be an embarrassing defeat for the Russian army. Russia has not captured a single Ukrainian city since last July and has advanced into Bakhmut despite soaring losses.
It is difficult to judge whether Ukraine’s advances will be sustained. Russian forces at one point attacked the Ukrainian army out of all but a few city blocks.
Ukraine’s advances this week cut through the Russian line at the largest bulge only about 3 miles, but the success erases what Moscow’s forces have worked so hard to achieve for several months.
That presents Russia with a difficult choice. If Russia does not consolidate its flank positions around Bakhmut, it risks a humiliating political defeat. But if the reserve forces were moved to the city, it could weaken the defenses to the south, where many analysts say Ukraine will attack towards the Sea of Azov to cut off the supply route to Crimea. occupied.
Ukrainian officials did not describe the attacks as the start of a widely anticipated counterattack. President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with the BBC this week, said Ukraine wants more weapons and ammunition arrived before it started the attack.
The benefits of Ukraine’s offensive extend to its efforts to secure more aid: A military breakthrough could convince Western officials to send more supplies, while failing or The deadlock could lead them to cut support or encourage negotiations. European foreign minister calling on China’s top diplomat this week to make Beijing do more to settle the war, and China, which presents itself as a potential mediator while providing diplomatic and economic assistance to Russia, has announced an envoy will visit Ukraine and Russia next week.
So Ukraine’s leaders, acutely aware of their reliance on Western support, have gone to great lengths to distinguish the recent attacks from the broader one. The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, General Oleksandr Syrsky, this week described Ukraine’s actions as primarily defensive, but said troops could “make effective counter-attacks”.
“In some areas of the front, the enemy could not withstand the onslaught of the Ukrainian defenders and retreated at a distance of up to two kilometers,” he said in a statement.
But Russian military bloggers reacted with alarm about Kyiv’s interests near Bakhmut. The bloggers, who often reported from the front and had connections to various commanders or groups of Wagner mercenaries, were pro-war and possibly influential in Russia, urging Moscow to commit to multiple sources. more power for the war.
Aleksandr Yaremchuk, a Russian military reporter affiliated with Wagner who led the nearly year-long war for Bakhmut, writes: “Wagner has poured a lot of sweat and blood for this territory, some have sacrificed themselves. their lives. “It’s hard for me to believe that other units give up their positions so easily.”
The outcry has led to a rare admission by the Russian Defense Ministry, which on Friday said its forces had retreated to an area around Bakhmut.
The head of Wagner, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, expressed support for the blogger’s assessment. On Thursday, he posted an open letter to the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, about losses in flank positions, saying that “the enemy has made a number of successful counterattacks. “
A series of posts, videos and statements also expose tensions and rifts between various Russian forces in Ukraine. Mr. Prigozhin, long a vocal critic of Shoigu and other top defense officials, this week delivered a series of obscene audio and video messages, including comments that some observers interpret as his first direct criticism of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Rifts appeared elsewhere, too, as Chechen Ramzan Kadyrov, whose paramilitary force fought alongside Wagner in Ukraine, criticized Mr Prigozhin, his longtime ally, in a wide video. cobble.
Several prominent Russian pro-war bloggers have warned that hostilities are starting to affect battlefield performance at a critical juncture.
“No order is respected without exception,” wrote a blogger, Anastasia Kashevarova. “We have a lot of people up front and no one can come to an agreement with each other.”
“The enemy,” she added, “is using this.”
Report contributed by Anatoly Kurmanaev, Maria Varennikova, Riley Mellen, Ishaan Jhaveri And Dmitry Khavin.
