The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces visited soldiers in Bakhmut for the second time in less than a week on Friday, a reflection of the precarious position Ukrainian forces find themselves in as they cling to their positions in the battered city.
Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander, warned in a statement that Russia is throwing “the most prepared units” into the fight and said that he was assessing “problematic issues” in fortifying the units on the front line
Russia launched its offensive to take Bakhmut in August and the fighting has rarely relented since. Though Ukraine has put up a stiff defense, in recent weeks Moscow’s forces have made gains that put the critical roads in and out of the city in jeopardy.
Those roads are vital to resupply the troops, but also for a retreat if needed.
For the moment, Ukrainian commanders say they have pushed Russian troops back a bit, reducing the threat of artillery fire on a main highway that leads southwest out of the city.
Even though it has limited strategic value, the small city in the eastern Ukraine has taken on enormous symbolic importance to both sides. Thousands of soldiers have died in a protracted artillery battle that has reduced most of the buildings in rubble and forced all but a few thousand of the residents to flee.
The challenge for Ukrainian commanders at the moment is ensuring that if a withdrawal is necessary they execute it at the right time, minimizing losses after holding out for as long as they could. The gravest risk for Ukrainian forces is that they would be encircled, trapped and killed in large numbers.
A more immediate risk is that Russia will make it impossible to resupply the Ukrainian fighters in and around Bakhmut. On Friday, Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy commander in Ukraine’s national guard, said soldiers defending the critical southern supply line “stand firm.”
The information campaign around the battle has also intensified, with Russia portraying the city as on the verge of capture. Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister, Hanna Maliar, said in a statement on Thursday that Russia was ”spreading the narratives that are intended to demoralize the Ukrainian military and society.”
As if on cue, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary force that has helped lead Russia’s assault on Bakhmut, released a video on Friday saying that the Ukrainians only had one road left to escape the city and urged President Volodymyr Zelensky to order a withdrawal.
“The pincers are closing,” he said.
It is not the first time Mr. Prigozhin has made bold proclamations, many of which have proven false. Still, the precariousness of the Ukrainian grip on Bakhmut has been evident for weeks.
The commander of a Ukrainian drone unit, who goes by the call sign Magyar and has offered frequent updates from inside Bakhmut, said in a video message on Thursday that it was “getting harder and harder” to hold the town. On Friday, he posted a video saying his unit had been ordered to withdraw from the city to another position. He offered no other details.
Other units were also reported to be pulling out of the city, though it was unclear whether the movements were part of the normal rotation of tired troops or part of a tactical retreat.
“Our unit was withdrawn to regroup,” Denys Yaroslavskyi, a Ukrainian commander of a unit in Bakhmut, said Friday in an interview with the Ukrainian broadcaster, Espresso. “Since the morning, the situation has been very difficult.”
Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting.
The New York Times
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