• Russian-backed militia forces are advancing in Bakhmut and Vuhledar.
• Deputy minister of defence for Ukraine: “The intensity of the fighting is increasing”.
• The region has seen some of the war’s most savage fighting so far.

Units of the Wagner contract militia of the Russian forces were advancing in the town of Bakhmut, according to the leader of the Russian-controlled portion of Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Wednesday, while a senior Ukrainian official reported that the battle in those two towns was intensifying.

Hanna Maliar, the deputy minister of defence for Ukraine, stated on the Telegram messaging service that “The enemy is increasing pressure on the Bakhmut and Vuhledar areas.”

She claimed that despite suffering substantial losses, Russia was sending a sizable amount of people and equipment into war.

“The intensity of the fighting is increasing.”

With a pre-war population of 70,000, the region around Bakhmut has witnessed some of the war’s most savage fighting. Despite the town’s lack of strategic relevance, according to Western military analysts, it has symbolic significance for both Russia and Ukraine.

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Fighting was going on in previously Ukrainian-held areas of Bakhmut, according to Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed governor of Russian-controlled areas of Donetsk province, which Moscow declared annexed last September.

He was quoted by TASS news agency as adding that “units, in particular Wagner, are advancing in Artyomovsk itself.”

Fighting has already started in neighbourhoods and on the periphery, which the enemy held until very recently.

In advances that the Wagner group claimed were their own, Russia announced earlier this month that it had taken Soledar, to the northeast, and Klishchiivka, just south of Bakhmut. In a video that was shared online earlier this week, Pushilin was seen travelling to Soledar.

According to Pushilin, seizing Soledar allowed for the blocking of Ukrainian supply channels and the control of several regions from which Ukrainian forces had been launching “retaliatory attack,” according to RIA news agency.

Maliar of Ukraine claimed that while Russia had an advantage in terms of combatants and equipment, Ukraine had better and more dedicated forces in the larger eastern industrial region known as the Donbas.

“The path to our victory is difficult,” Maliar said.

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