Ukraine claimed on Friday to have advanced two kilometers around Bakhmout, which Moscow denied.
The Ukrainian army said this Saturday “to advance” around Bakhmout, epicenter of the fighting with Russian troops in eastern Ukraine, while Moscow assured to continue its progress in the city already mainly under its control and today largely devastated.
“The defensive operation in the direction of Bakhmout continues. Our soldiers are advancing in some areas of the front, and the enemy is losing equipment and troops,” Ukrainian ground troops commander Oleksandre Syrsky said on Telegram.
According to Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar, “the situation is developing in a ‘dynamic’ way” in the Bakhmout area and the Ukrainian troops are “gradually advancing in two directions in the suburbs” of this city ravaged by months of battle .
On Friday, Ukraine said it had advanced two kilometers around Bakhmout, which Moscow denied.
The longest battle since the beginning of the war
On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry did not comment on the Ukrainian claims, but said in a statement that “assault units liberated a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the city of Artyomovsk”, the Russian name for Bakhmout.
“The situation in the city itself is more complicated,” acknowledged Ganna Maliar on Telegram, while asserting that “the enemy is unable to take control” of Bakhmout.
The battle for this city in Donbass is the bloodiest and longest since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
Observers doubt the strategic scope of the conquest of this city for Russia but it would allow Moscow to post a victory after several humiliating setbacks.
For its part, Kiev assumes that it wants to tire the Russian army as much as possible by fixing it in this area of the Donbass before launching an offensive aimed at reconquering the occupied territories in the east and south of the country, the preparations for which “are reaching their end” according to Ukrainian officials.
