As Ukraine resists, Putin’s troops redouble their attacks on the city of Bakhmut

Russian troops on Sunday redoubled their attacks on the city of Bakhmuta major communications hub in eastern Ukraine that has been the scene of heavy fighting for several months.

“On the Bakhmut front, the enemy continues to attack our positions,” the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported on its Facebook page on Sunday. According to the Ukrainian command, attempts by Vladimir Putin’s troops to make progress in this area have been rebuffed.

“At the moment, there is no indication that the Kiev regime has started to withdraw its fighters and save its exhausted units,” the Russian-imposed acting chief in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region said of the situation in Bakhmut. Denis Pushilinin an interview with the Russian official agency CASS.

He recalled that the Ukrainian President, Volodimir Zelenskysaid his army has no intention of defending Bakhmut “at any cost” and will do so “as long as it is reasonable”.

“The word ‘reasonable’ for the enemy can mean anything, including fighting ‘all the last Ukrainians’,” Pushilin added.

According to the Russian command, the Ukrainian contingent defending Bakhmut, which before the outbreak of military actions had about 70,000 inhabitants, is practically surrounded, since the Russian army controls the northern, southern and eastern approaches to the city while the western one is within range of their artillery.

This Saturday, the founder of the mercenary company Wagner Group, the Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhinannounced that his assault detachments had captured the small village of Yahidne, located three kilometers from the center of Bakhmut.

However, this point was not confirmed in the report that the Russian Ministry of Defense offers daily.

Bakhmut (Artiomovsk, for Russians) is located 55 kilometers northeast of the city of Donetsk and is connected by road to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the largest cities in the Donetsk region which are under the control of Ukrainian troops .

According to the kyiv government, the resistance offered by the Ukrainian troops in this sector of the front not only exhausts Russian forcesbut also to prepare a counter-offensive.

Deputy Head of Ukrainian Military Intelligence, Vadim Skibitskysaid that in the European spring this year, the Ukrainian army will be ready to launch a counter-offensive, which will depend on many factors, including the supply of Western weapons.

One of the goals of the counter-offensive, Skibitskiy said in statements collected by Digital Today Ukraine Pravdais “to open a breach in the Russian southern front, between Crimea and mainland Russia”.

He stressed that Ukraine will not rest until it liberates all occupied territories, including the Crimean Peninsula. “We won’t stop until we get the country back to the borders it had in 1991,” the senior Ukrainian official said.

Zelensky reiterated on Sunday, which Ukraine remembers as the Day of Resistance to the Russian Occupation of Crimea, that peace can be restored with the return to Ukrainians of this peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014.

“Nine years ago, Russian aggression began in Crimea. If we take back Crimea, we will restore peace. It is our land. Our city. Our history. We will return the Ukrainian flag to all corners of Ukraine,” the Ukrainian president wrote in a message on Telegram.

On February 26, 2014, next to the seat of the Parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, in Simferopol, pro-Russians and pro-Ukrainians gathered in a rally that ended in clashes during which two people died and about thirty were injured.

Twenty days later, on March 18, Russia annexed the peninsula.

(With information from EFE)

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