For months, there have been no major changes on the battlefront in Ukraine, in any case, slow progress that does not allow the balance to be tipped to one side or the other. But in recent days it seems that the Russian initiative in Bakhmut, the current epicenter of the conflict, could bear some fruit. On Thursday, Moscow and Kyiv noted a new and intense Russian assault, although they differed in the results, and yesterday the intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom assured in the daily report that the Ukrainian troops have had to cede areas of the city due to Russian pressure.
During the last two days, Russian troops have resumed the offensive on Bakhmut, which in Russia they call Artemivsk, the name it had until 2016. Moscow has intensified the artillery fire and the Russian attack seems more coordinated after "the forces of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Wagner Group have improved cooperation", said London yesterday. In recent months, the head of Wagner's mercenaries, the oligarch close to the Kremlin Yevgeny Prigozhin, has accused the Russian command of not having sent enough supplies to his men.
Bakhmut, which before the conflict had 70,000 inhabitants, has become Russia's main target this winter to revive its advance in eastern Ukraine. Surrendering this stronghold, as well as a morale boost after the autumn withdrawals in Kharkiv (northeast) and Kherson (south), could allow Russian troops to advance to other more important cities, and then try to control all the province of Donetsk, a declared target of the pro-Russian authorities in this region.
Moscow said on Thursday that its troops had managed to prevent the Ukrainian women from entering and leaving the city. "Airborne troops support the advance of assault troops, so they block the transfer of Ukrainian army reserves to the city and the possibility of withdrawal of enemy units," said the spokesman of Russian defender, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov.
Kyiv, for its part, denied it. The spokesman for his army, Serhí Txerevati, stated that his troops could still "send provisions, ammunition and medicine", as well as evacuate the wounded.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar admitted on Telegram that there was fighting all over the eastern front, but that "most offensive efforts" by the Russians were "in the Bakhmut sector", with "their most professional units and using a significant amount of artillery and aviation”. According to her, every day the Russians carried out "between 40 and 50 assault operations and about 500 bombings". But he assured that Ukrainian forces repelled the attacks in almost all areas.
Wagner's boss, Prigozhin, said it was still too early to call the city surrounded. Days before, he assured that his men controlled 80% of the city, a figure that Ukrainians see as exaggerated.
With the Russian initiative underway, it seems that Kyiv is forced to back down. According to British military intelligence, "Ukrainian defenses still hold the western districts of the city, but have come under particularly heavy Russian artillery fire over the previous 48 hours."
Faced with this situation, "they are facing significant problems of replenishment, but they have made orderly withdrawals from the positions they have been forced to give up".
And Konayshenkov, the Russian Defense spokesman, assured yesterday in his daily report that Wagner's mercenaries "are carrying out high-intensity hostilities to seize the neighborhoods of the western areas" of Bakhmut.
