Bakhmut remains 'hottest spot' on front line, 'breaking' Russia: Zelenskyy after visit

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast remains the "hottest point" out of the entire 1,300-kilometre front line as Russian forces relentlessly try to break Ukraine's defences in the city, reported Kyiv Independent. "Since May, the occupiers have been trying to break our Bakhmut, but time goes on, and Bakhmut is already breaking not only the Russian army but also Russian mercenaries who came to replace the lost soldiers of the occupiers," he said in his nightly address on December 20. 

Bakhmut, a city in Ukraine’s embattled Donetsk region, has been a focal point of the Russian offensive for several months. During a televised address on Monday night, Zelenskyy said that the harsh battle was “breaking” both the Russian Army and Russian-aligned mercenaries operating in the area, such as the notorious Wagner Group.

The mercenaries Zelenskyy refers to are from the Wagner Group, a Russian-backed private military group led by Evgeniy Prigozhin, a long-time close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Wagner Group mercenaries have been fighting in Ukraine alongside Russian forces. Zelenskyy commented on the enormous losses on the Russian side, saying, "Just think about it: Russia has already lost almost 99 thousand of its soldiers in Ukraine. Soon there will be 100,000 losses. For what? No one in Moscow has an answer to this question."

Bakhmut 'destroyed' by Russian forces

Russian forces have turned the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut into ruins, President Zelenskyy said on December 11, while Ukraine’s military on Saturday reported missile, rocket and air strikes in multiple parts of the country that Moscow is trying to conquer after months of resistance. Zelenskyy said that the situation “remains very difficult” in several frontline cities in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. Together, the provinces make up the Donbas, an expansive industrial region bordering Russia that Putin identified as a focus from the war’s outset and where Moscow-backed separatists have fought since 2014.

“Bakhmut, Soledar, Maryinka, Kreminna. For a long time, there is no living place left on the land of these areas that have not been damaged by shells and fire,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on December 11, naming cities that have again found themselves in the crosshairs. “The occupiers actually destroyed Bakhmut, another Donbas city that the Russian army turned into burnt ruins.” But some analysts have questioned Russia’s strategic logic in the relentless pursuit to take Bakhmut and surrounding areas that also came under intense shelling in the past weeks, and where Ukrainian officials reported that some residents were living in damp basements, reported AP. “The costs associated with six months of brutal, grinding, and attrition-based combat around #Bakhmut far outweigh any operational advantage that the #Russians can obtain from taking Bakhmut,” the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington said. 

(With Inputs from AP)