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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Bakhmut “is only in our hearts,” hours after the Russian defense ministry reported that Wagner’s private army forces, with the support of Russian troops, had captured the city in Eastern Ukraine.
Speaking to US President Joe Biden at the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Zelenskyy said Russia had destroyed “everything”. “You have to know that it’s nothing,” he said.
“For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts,” he said. “There is nothing in this place.”
The statement of the Russian ministry on the Telegram channel came about eight hours after a similar announcement by the head of Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin. Ukrainian authorities at the time said the fight for Bakhmut continued.
8 months of war
The eight-month war for Bakhmut was Ukraine’s longest and perhaps bloodiest conflict.
Zelenskyy’s comments came as Biden announced $375 million more in aid to Ukraine, which includes more ammunition, artillery, and vehicles.
“I am grateful for the significant financial assistance [Ukraine] of [the U.S.],” Zelenskyy tweeted later.
Analysts say the Russian victory at Bakhmut is unlikely to turn the tide of the war.
Russia’s capture of the last remaining land in Bakhmut is “not tactically or operationally important,” a Washington-based think tank said on Saturday. The Institute for the Study of War said that taking control of the area “does not provide an operationally significant area for Russian forces to continue conducting offensive operations,” or “to defend against a possible Ukrainian counterattack.”
Using the city’s Soviet-era name, the Russian ministry said, “In the tactical direction of Artyomovsk, the assault team of the private military company Wagner with artillery and aviation support from the southern battle group has completed the liberation of the city of Artyomovsk.”
Putin sent his congratulations
Russia’s state news agency cited the Kremlin press service as saying President Vladimir Putin “congratulates the Wagner assault detachment, as well as all the soldiers of the Russian Armed Forces units, who provided the necessary support and flank protection, at the end of the operation. to liberate Artyomovsk.”
In a video posted earlier on Telegram, Prigozhin said the city was under complete Russian control by midday. He said he was flanked by about half a dozen fighters, with a ruined building in the background and an explosion heard in the distance.
Russian forces will still face the enormous task of recapturing the remaining Donetsk region under Ukrainian control, including some heavily fortified areas.
It is unclear which side paid the higher price in the battle for Bakhmut. Both Russia and Ukraine have suffered losses believed to be in the thousands, although neither has disclosed the number of casualties.
Zelenskyy stressed the importance of defending Bakhmut in an interview with The Associated Press in March, saying its fall could allow Russia to rally international support for a deal that would require Kyiv to make unacceptable compromises.
Analysts say the fall of Bakhmut will be a blow to Ukraine and give some tactical advantages to Russia, but will not determine the outcome of the war.
The pre-war population was 80,000
Russian forces still face the enormous task of recapturing the rest of the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control, including some heavily occupied areas. The neighboring provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk make up the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland where a separatist uprising began in 2014 and which Moscow illegally annexed in September.
Bakhmut, located about 55 kilometers north of the capital of the Russian-controlled Donetsk region, had a population of 80,000 before the war and was an important industrial center, surrounded by salt and gypsum mines.
The city, which was named Artyomovsk after the Bolshevik revolutionaries when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, is also known for the production of sparkling wine in underground caves. Wide tree-lined streets, lush parks and a grand city center with late 19th-century mansions – all now a gloomy wasteland – make it a popular tourist destination.
When a separatist rebellion swept through eastern Ukraine in 2014 weeks after Ukraine’s illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, the rebels quickly took control of the city, only to lose it a few months later.
After Russia shifted its focus to Donbas following a failed attempt to capture Kyiv early in the February 2022 invasion, Moscow forces attempted to capture Bakhmut in August but were repulsed.
Fighting there stalled in the fall as Russia faced a Ukrainian counteroffensive to the east and south, but resumed apace late last year. In January, the Russians captured the salt mining town of Soledar, north of Bakhmut, and sealed off the outskirts of the city.
Led by mercenaries
A powerful Russian offensive hit nearby towns and villages as Moscow launched a three-pronged offensive to try to crush resistance in what Ukrainians call the “Bakhmut fortress.”
Mercenaries from Wagner led the Russian attack. Prigozhin tried to use the battle for the city to expand his influence amid tensions with Russia’s harshly criticized military leadership.
“We are fighting not only with the armed forces of Ukraine in Bakhmut. We are fighting with the Russian bureaucracy, which is throwing sand in the wheels,” Prigozhin said in a video on Friday.
Relentless Russian artillery bombardment left few buildings intact amid fierce house-to-house fighting. Wagner fighters “marched on their own soldiers” according to Ukrainian officials. Both sides have expended ammunition at a rate not seen in decades of armed conflict, firing thousands of rounds per day.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said capturing the city would allow Russia to push further into the Donetsk region, one of four Ukrainian provinces Moscow illegally annexed in September.
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