The Battle for Bakhmut, in Photos

Even for those who witnessed the battle for Bakhmut, the longest and perhaps the largest conflict of war in Ukraine, words often fail.

The soldiers who fought in the shell-strewn city, strained to utter the massacre. The reek of trenches around the city and the incessant howl of gunfire, he said, reminded him of the Battle of Verdun in 1916, which lasted 300 days and was one of the bloodiest of World War I.

As Russia announced its “victory” on Saturday, relentless bombardment reduced old shops and homes to rubble. As Ukraine focused on fighting on the outskirts, President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that the city was gone, saying “Bakhmut is only in our hearts.”

This is the arc of destruction captured by photographers from The New York Times over the past year.

A First Strike

The defeat of Bakhmut began in earnest with a Russian missile attack in May 2022. The front was still about 10 miles away and artillery thundered in the distance. There are few cars on the streets except military vehicles; shops and banks were boarded up. Only one or two coffee shops and supermarkets are still open.

In June, the Ukrainian government asked all those who remained in Bakhmut and other towns along the Russian advance to join the exodus of civilians fleeing for safety.

Close Ing

In the eastern Donbas region – a constellation of industrial cities and mining towns that dot the steppe – Russia has repeatedly reduced towns and cities to rubble before claiming the ruins.

In July, after weeks of fierce fighting, Russia captured the twin cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, about 35 miles northeast of Bakhmut, and almost completely expelled Ukraine from Luhansk province, which is part of the Donbas region.

The capture of Bakhmut is seen as a step towards two more important cities, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and towards another Donetsk, another province in the Donbas region. The rate of artillery fire is increasing, and Ukrainian soldiers are being wounded and killed by the hundreds every day, government officials say. Houses are burning and the city is shaking day and night.

Declare the Target

After Russia’s plan to quickly overthrow the Ukrainian government failed and the military suffered a series of defeats outside the capital, Kyiv, and in other cities in the northeast, the Kremlin regrouped and doubled its efforts to capture the Donbas region.

In the summer, Russia still had more firepower than Ukraine, whose soldiers were running out of ammunition. At one point, Ukrainian officials estimated that Russian forces were firing 50,000 artillery rounds a day, as their own forces could only return about 5,000 to 6,000 rounds.

On August 1, the Russian defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, announced that the battle for Bakhmut had begun. Not for the last time, speculation swirled: Can Bakhmut be detained?

War at a Distance

The city of Bakhmut was renamed Artyomovsk in 1924 by the Soviet leadership Bolshevik revolutionary Fyodor “Artem” Sergeyev, friend of Stalin. In 2016, residents removed the Soviet name.

In more peaceful times, Bakhmut was famous for its wineries and salt mines. But when Russia stepped up efforts to capture the city, Ukrainian officials said it was a fortress; over time, its symbolic importance grew even military analysts questioned its military significance.

During the summer, the fighting took place at a distance as both sides engaged in artillery battles and long-range attacks.

Bridges were blown up and the ground was planted with mines. Ukrainian soldiers fortified their positions in the city and Russian troops kept pounding away from the perimeter.

As the war raged, the authorities in Kyiv continued to try and convince civilians to leave. Fearing no heat, gas or power as winter approaches, Ukraine ordered mandatory evacuations in August.

That means thousands more join the estimated 14 million Ukrainians who have been displaced from their homes across the country, often fleeing on crowded evacuation trains — a lifetime packed into a suitcase or two because they don’t know if they’ll ever return.

Loss of Victims

In the fall, a stunning Ukrainian counteroffensive struck the Russians from the northeastern province of Kharkiv; a short time later, Ukraine pushed across Kherson province south west of the Dnipro river, recapturing the city of Kherson, the capital of the province.

Despite the setback, the only place the Russians attacked with ferocity was Bakhmut.

The attack was led by a mercenary group known as Wagner, which was founded by a Russian tycoon who is a confidant of Vladimir V. Putin and used his ties to the Kremlin to amass a fortune. The group’s ranks are bolstered by criminals recruited from Russian penal colonies. Despite poor morale and abysmal leadership, he continued to attack.

While the broader contours of the war shifted dramatically in the fall, the war for Bakhmut continued to be defined by appalling losses for both sides.

City in Ruins

By November, the city was a maze of rubble, barricades and hastily constructed blast walls. Military analysts continue to question its strategic importance and whether it is worth the cost Ukraine is paying to keep Russia at bay. When The New York Times visited the city in late November, the hospital was packed with dozens of traumatized soldiers. gunshot wounds, shrapnel wounds, concussions.

“They came in groups – 10, 10, five, 10,” said Parus, one of the Ukrainian medics at the hospital.

But a new word also entered Ukrainian lexicons across the country as soldiers fought to keep the city from falling: Bakhmut capture.

Trying to Stay On

As for the Ukrainian soldiers who were ordered to hold Bakhmut, surrounded by massacre and death, they could not do anything. And the fighting was relentless.

Mobilized Russian troops “just took their guns and marched down like in the Soviet era,” said a Ukrainian medic using the call sign Smile. “He died and the next one came the same way.”

When the temperature drops below freezing, the few remaining residents usually live in basement bunkers. They rely on volunteers to provide food and medical supplies, occasionally scavenging for firewood.

Both continued to slug it out. Russian forces said they were able to enter the eastern bank of the Bakhmut in early December. Once again, military analysts wondered how long the Ukrainians could hold out.

Intense Bombardment

By February, Russia had sent in hundreds of thousands of newly mobilized soldiers – replacing an estimated 200,000 killed and wounded in the overall war. Desperate for victory, Russian fighters attacked Ukrainian positions, often with little support.

One Ukrainian soldier told The New York Times in February that he couldn’t kill Russian troops quickly enough. They will mow down one wave only to be met by another group pushing ahead through a box littered with their own dead.

Despite suffering staggering losses, the Russians continued to attack, slowly suffocating the city while shutting down vital supply lines. In March, the main roads in and out of the city came under heavy attack and thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were at risk of being cut off.

As Ukrainian soldiers secured key roads and then began retaking land north and south of the city, Russian forces intensified their bombardment of the parched city and the last blocks held by Ukrainian defenders.

An indescribable loss

Almost every night for the first two weeks of May, sometimes twice a night, the Russian Army rained fire down on Ukrainian positions in the form of incendiary ammunition. As the fire raged, Russian artillery and tanks exploded, and snipers hid in damaged buildings to prevent Ukrainian forces from bringing in reinforcements or moving troops out.

The fire from Bakhmut lit up the night sky for miles, and the smoke hung over the ruins in the early hours, so thick it looked like fog.

On Saturday, a year after the Russians first began to attack the city regularly, they had succeeded in destroying it.

Bakhmut is no longer a city, but a cemetery.

Bakhmut may be a city that is impossible to live in – for both sides. But over time, it took on an outsize importance: a symbol of Ukrainian defiance and Russian leaders’ determination to blast their way to a small victory in a little-known corner of eastern Ukraine. It will long be remembered as a place of unspeakable suffering.

This reporting was contributed by Carlotta Gall, Thomas Gibbons-NeffGaelle Girbes, Andrew E. Kramer, Evelina Riabenko, Michael Schwirtz, Maria VarenikovaSlava Yatsenko, Dmitry Yatsenko and Natalia Yermak.