Alexei's group stopped last Tuesday at a small and unstocked shop in Chasiv Yar. They came from Bakhmut. They got out of the military truck impregnated with mud, like their uniforms. They bought a couple of stuffed buns, some tangerines and some coffee that they drink in the middle of the street; the explosions sounded non-stop. Some cannon shots were from the start. Others, input. The Russian troops accelerated the encirclement of Bakhmut and the battle was felt more intensely in this area at the gates of the battle.
His eyes were red, exhausted, like those of dozens of soldiers leaving Bakhmut, a mining and agricultural town in the heart of Donbass that the Russians, especially Wagner's mercenaries, have been determined to capture since last summer.
"The attacks are so many and the destruction is so great that it is already very difficult to hold our positions," confessed Alexei, a soldier since 2018, who after thinking about it a bit decided to speak. Another of the men who also stopped at the store to buy something hot to drink, a heavy car mechanic, went even further when asked about what goes on inside the city: “We should stop caring: Bakhmut doesn't exist. ”, He sentenced and his eyes watered. "Sorry, sorry," he apologized.
Alexei, the soldier, has been stationed in this region for months. He has witnessed the systematic deterioration of Bakhmut since the Russian pressure increased on February 25. This happened both inside the city, where street fighting began to take place more frequently, and in the surrounding towns, where Wagner's militiamen continued to attack insistently. Their goal in recent days is to encircle the city, as they did at the time with Mariupol. "The same thing will happen very quickly in Bakhmut," Alexei said.
This version was confirmed yesterday by members of the Ochi aerospace unit, which operates drones against the Russians. In a text message to La Vanguardia and two other media they said that the position on the outskirts of Bajmut from which they operated until last Wednesday was compromised and they no longer used it. It had been discovered by the Russians.
On Wednesday, when we accompanied them to less than two kilometers from the position of Wagner's mercenaries, these men told that, hours before, they had contained a group of Russians who were trying to advance there. Olexí, one of the members of the unit He recognized that for a few days they had been constantly attacked by artillery.
"During the day it seems lonely, the troops are hidden, but at night the fighting in the streets is especially hard," he said. The result is a devastated Bakhmut, according to the images uploaded on their mobile phones by soldiers, volunteers and journalists who have been able to enter in recent days. On Wednesday the authorities prohibited access to any non-military person. No building seems intact; a situation much worse than that observed on a visit on January 14, when the scene was already gruesome. Most of the buildings were hit, burned facades, broken glass, rubble in the street.
It was a ghost town, with only a few citizens – an estimated 5,000 – gathered at strategic points, such as the so-called invincibility points – which operate in communal rooms or basements – where they could charge their mobile phones, eat something hot, and stock up on the necessary medicines. “The enemy wants to fulfill his objective and our soldiers cannot always respond because we have an ammunition problem. My opinion is that very soon we are going to have to withdraw from the city”, sentenced Alexéi, the soldier who ate stuffed buns.
His opinion was shared by other soldiers such as Oleg, a surgeon from the city of Donetsk in charge of one of the mobile clinics for first care of the wounded. On Wednesday he received the order to collect everything and move back to another position in the Donbass that he did not want to reveal. These testimonies added even more confusion about what is happening in Bakhmut, where the situation, and especially the plans of the Ukrainian authorities, remain uncertain.
While some voices speak of the possibility of a strategic withdrawal, the Vice Minister of Defense announced this week the sending of reinforcements, as was evident in the towns near the front. As the days passed, new units of men were seen arriving from other regions of the country, such as Andrei. “They have sent us here to support and relieve exhausted colleagues,” she explained. Last Thursday several military caravans were seen entering and leaving Donbass from the road that came from Dnipro.
The twist of the screw came on Friday, when Ukrainian forces destroyed a couple of key bridges, one of them over the only road that connected Bakhmut with the areas under Ukrainian control. This happened after Yevgueni Prigozhin, Wagner's leader, stated that the city was practically surrounded and that it only had one access road left, the same as the blown-up bridge. Witnesses assured yesterday that this route was being constantly attacked by Russian fire. But Ochi's men confirmed yesterday in his message that the Ukrainians were still in the city.
“If we go back, we can hold the defenses here in Chásiv Yar and other towns in the area for a long time. I think they have lost a lot of people, their goal was Bakhmut", Alexei sentenced on Tuesday, who hoped that after this battle there would be a rest.
"They have not won, they have spent seven months fighting with all their might for Bakhmut."
