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The head of Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group said his mercenaries had captured Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, a claim Ukraine’s military denied even as its soldiers were forced into increasingly receding land inside the devastated city.
A senior Ukrainian military official admitted that the situation in the city was “critical”, with soldiers facing intense artillery fire and aerial bombardment. However, he said, Ukrainian forces are still conducting combat operations.
The Russian Ministry of Defense and the Kremlin issued a statement confirming the city had been “liberated”, hours after a declaration by Wagner’s chief, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, that the battle for the city was over. After almost a year of war, Bakhmut has assumed a lot of importance: a symbol of Ukrainian resistance and the determination of Russian leaders to achieve small victories in the eastern corner of Ukraine.
In a video posted on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday, Mr Prigozhin, standing in front of the city’s damaged train station, held up a Russian flag and declared victory. “Today, at noon, Bakhmut has been completely captured,” Mr. Prigozhin said “We have completely captured the entire city, from house to house.”
About an hour later, Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, said Ukrainian soldiers still remained in “certain industrial and infrastructure facilities” in the southwestern corner of Bakhmut. “Heavy fighting continues,” he said in a brief statement.
The commander of the Ukrainian army, General Oleksandr Syrsky, said the battle for Bakhmut is not over yet. “The battle continues for every meter of territory,” he said in a statement. He released a video on Friday afternoon that he said showed Ukrainian Special Forces operating in the city.
The Russian government late Saturday released a statement declaring the capture of the city “complete” and declaring the success of the “offensive action by the Wagner assault unit” supported by artillery and aviation units.
Military analysts and some Ukrainian officials say that their stand in Bakhmut has served two strategic purposes related to the anticipated counterattack: to humiliate Russian forces and to force Russian commanders to withdraw troops from elsewhere on the front line, undermining defensive positions.
Recently, Ukrainian forces have gained ground in the north and south of the city, forcing the Russian military to rush thousands of troops to the area, the British military intelligence agency wrote on Friday. “With Russia likely to keep some combat units out of Ukraine, the redeployment is a significant commitment by the Russian command.”
Mr Prigozhin, who used his victory speech to issue yet another indictment of the Russian military establishment, was no doubt aware of the dilemma when he said he would pull his troops out of the city by May 25 – a threat he has made before. and it is not done.
But for now, Wagner’s forces continued to attack.
Ukrainian soldiers who fought in the city as recently as last week described the nightmarish violence Wagner’s forces have unleashed in an effort to drive them from their final redoubts.
Most every night for the past two weeks, sometimes twice a night, the Russians opened fire on Ukrainian positions with incendiary ammunition. As the fire burned, Russian artillery and tanks bombarded positions day and night, and snipers waited in the ruined buildings to prevent the Ukrainians from bringing in reinforcements or moving troops out.
Satellite imagery and images taken by drones posted on social media by Russian and Ukrainian forces testify to the destruction of cities in some of the most intense urban fighting in a generation.
Many buildings have been destroyed. Others are charred hulks. Some corners of the city are untouched. “In the city of Bakhmut, they turned buildings into ashes,” said Ms. Maliar on Friday night. “Only the foundation remains, which cannot be defended.”
While Ukrainian forces may still be holding out, they have been retreating step by step for months and may be planning to withdraw to more defensible positions.
Essentially, Ukraine appears to be trying to change the script of the war.
For nearly a year, Russian forces attacked Ukrainians inside the city while also surrounding them. Now, with Wagner largely in control of the city, the Ukrainians seem to be trying to encircle Russia through attacks to the north and south.
While the counterattack has turned Ukraine’s momentum in some areas outside the city, the campaign is still in its early stages. The Ukrainian military says its forces have captured about 12 square miles north and south of the city, but has admitted that gains have come at a high cost.
The battle for Bakhmut – a medium-sized city with limited strategic military value – has grown in importance as Ukraine has dragged on for longer than military analysts had predicted. Bakhmut sits underground and is not a rail hub like other cities to the east such as Lyman or Izium.
The phrase “Bakhmut Holds” is on the T-shirt, and President Volodymyr Zelensky calls it the “fortress” of Ukraine’s Bakhmut.
“We will fight for as long as we can,” he said in February, when Russian forces came perilously close to surrounding Ukrainian soldiers in the city.
Mr Zelensky was in Japan on Saturday urging the world’s richest democracies to stick together even as the Kremlin hopes war-weariness will weaken the resolve of Kyiv’s allies. His office had no immediate comment on Wagner’s boss’ claims.
The Ukrainian military commander suggested that there will be time to withdraw troops from the city, but it will not be the end of the Bakhmut war.
Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces fighting in the east, said on Friday night that Ukrainian soldiers would continue to fight in the city “as long as they cause the greatest damage to the enemy and allow us to maintain our forces.”
Earlier this month, the White House estimated that since December Russia had suffered 100,000 casualties, including more than 20,000 killed, with many of the losses suffered at Bakhmut.
Ukraine has also suffered heavy losses in months of brutal fighting, but rarely updates its casualty figures.
Mr. Prigozhin, who recruited tens of thousands of prisoners to expand his military campaign and sent many of his dead in head-on charges on Ukrainian positions, blamed the Russian military establishment for the heavy casualties suffered by Wagner.
“We are not only fighting the Ukrainian army in Bakhmut, we are also fighting the Russian bureaucracy that is interfering with our efforts,” Mr Prigozhin said on Saturday. “For want, five times more men die than ought to die.”
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