February 26, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

There’s one factor that Russian and Ukrainian accounts agree upon: The preventing across the jap metropolis of Bakhmut is relentless, and the casualties — on either side — are excessive. 

A fierce battle within the streets: Till a number of weeks in the past, the battle was waged largely with tanks, artillery and mortars. However Bakhmut has more and more develop into a discipline of city fight, with each road and constructing within the suburbs and surrounding villages contested.

Russian forces — together with fighters from the Wagner personal army firm — have edged towards the middle of town from the east, south and north.

Ukrainian models have launched frequent counter-attacks to attempt to reclaim some territory and protect their precarious entry to Bakhmut from the west. That entry has develop into progressively extra difficult as routes into town have come beneath management of Russian forces.

Ukrainian troopers on unofficial social media accounts have mentioned they’re more and more reliant on dust roads to succeed in — and depart — Bakhmut, tracks which will develop into impassable because the frost turns to mud.

Russia goals to encircle Ukraine’s troops: Reasonably than drive instantly towards town heart, Wagner teams have sought to encompass town in a large arc from the north. In January, the teams claimed the close by city of Soledar, and have since taken a string of villages and hamlets north of Bakhmut.

That course of seems to have gone a step additional in latest days, with Wagner apparently reaching the village of Yahidne instantly to the northwest of Bakhmut. The village sits on a route that, till just lately, was utilized by Ukrainians to get out and in of town.

The following goal for the Russians may very well be the city of Chasiv Yar, a straggling assortment of Soviet-era residence blocks, sitting on excessive floor which has already been extensively broken. Ukrainian officers mentioned it got here beneath artillery hearth once more Sunday.

How lengthy will Ukraine defend town? The conundrum for the Ukrainian army is whether or not it stays possible to proceed defending Bakhmut.

At first of February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned, “Nobody will give up Bakhmut. We’ll battle so long as we will. We contemplate Bakhmut our fortress.”

Extra just lately, in an interview with Italian media, Zelensky’s tone was barely completely different. “It will be important for us to defend (Bakhmut), however not at any value and never for everybody to die,” he was quoted as saying.

If Bakhmut can now not be held, it is going to be essential to notice the place Ukrainians select to attract their subsequent defensive strains. The cities of Kostiantynivka and Kramatorsk are usually not far to the west of Bakhmut and have already registered an uptick in Russian missile assaults.  

For now, there isn’t any signal of a withdrawal of Ukrainian models from the Bakhmut space, and the brutal preventing wears on.