Bakhmut: Street fighting but Russia is not in control

• Russia does not control the eastern city, according to its deputy mayor.
• Thousands of Russian troops were killed in the attempt to take Bakhmut.
• According to Ukrainian commanders, Russia has lost seven times as many soldiers as they have.

Russian and Ukrainian forces are fighting in Bakhmut’s streets, but Russia does not control the eastern city, according to its deputy mayor.

According to Oleksandr Marchenko, the remaining 4,000 civilians are living in shelters without access to gas, electricity, or water.

Mr Marchenko said “not a single building” had remained untouched and that the city is “almost destroyed”.

Bakhmut has seen months of fighting as Russia attempts to seize control.

“There is fighting near the city and there are also street fights,” Mr Marchenko said.

Taking the city would be a rare battlefield victory for Russia in recent months. Nonetheless, the city’s strategic importance has been called into question.

According to some experts, any Russian victory could be pyrrhic, or not worth the cost.

Thousands of Russian troops were killed in the attempt to take Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of around 75,000 people. According to Ukrainian commanders, Russia has lost seven times as many soldiers as they have.

According to UK military intelligence, Russian advances in the northern suburbs have exposed Ukraine-held areas to Russian attacks on three sides.

Mr Marchenko accused the Russians of having “no goal” to save the city and that it wanted to commit “genocide of the Ukrainian people”.

“Currently there is no communication in the city so the city is cut out, the bridges are destroyed and the tactics the Russians are using is the tactic of parched land,” Mr Marchenko told.

Bakhmut’s demise has long been predicted, but it has yet to occur after more than six months. As a result, any reports of a possible Ukrainian withdrawal should be treated with caution.

Without independent sources, it is difficult to know what is going on. Both sides have a stronger incentive to mislead their adversary than to provide accurate information.

However, despite the heavy losses inflicted on Russian troops, Ukrainian commanders may be beginning to calculate that the cost of defending Bakhmut – in terms of blood and treasure – is now too high.

If that is the case, they may want what Western analysts refer to as a “a controlled fighting withdrawal” to protect the remaining Ukrainian forces so that they can be redeployed.

However, any withdrawal may be difficult and time-consuming.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this week that the situation in the region was becoming “more and more difficult,” despite the Ukrainian military saying it had repelled numerous attacks since Friday.

“I believe we shouldn’t give any inch of our land to the enemy,” Mr Marchenko said. “We should protect our land, we should protect our people and we should protect the businesses that are on this land.”

Mr Marchenko added that the city was “almost destroyed,” with bridges destroyed and communication cut off.

“They want to destroy Bakhmut, just like they did Mariupol and Popasna,” he said, referring to two cities in eastern Ukraine now under Russian control.

At the start of the invasion, the Russian military besieged the south-eastern port city of Mariupol and took control after three months of artillery bombardment that killed thousands.

Following a lengthy battle with Ukrainian forces, Russia claimed the Donbas town of Soledar, about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) from Bakhmut, in January.

By the time the Ukrainian army retreated, Soledar had been reduced to a wasteland of flattened buildings and rubble.

On Friday, President Zelensky stressed that artillery and shells were needed to “stop Russia”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the country’s latest package included high-precision Himars artillery rockets and howitzers “which Ukraine is using so effectively”.

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