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Reports of a Ukrainian breakthrough at Bakhmut are increasing – a Russian blogger is alarmed. Moscow denies.
The fierce fighting in the eastern Ukrainian city Bachmut keep on holding. The head of the Wagner mercenary group fighting in the city, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had warned several times in the past few days of an imminent encirclement of Russian troops due to unsecured flanks. Bakhmut is currently almost entirely under Russian control. A Russian war correspondent and blogger has now confirmed this assessment.
Fighting in Bachmut is increasing – probably high death toll
Because of the success of the Ukrainian attacks on the flanks of those fighting in the city mercenary force Wagner there is a threat of full-scale encirclement, Yevgeny Poddubny, who works for Russian state television, wrote on Telegram on Thursday. There have also been Ukrainian breakthroughs in the area of Soledar, which is only a few kilometers northeast of Bakhmut. There, Ukrainian combat groups managed to break through the Russian lines. “The situation is difficult,” wrote Poddubny. Russian forces only took Soledar at the end of January after weeks of heavy fighting. Other pro-Russian war bloggers also reported Ukrainian breakthroughs at Bakhmut.
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The Ukrainian army spokesman Serhiy Cherevatyj reported in the evening of desperate attempts by the Russian units to stop further advances Ukrainians to be stopped with massive artillery strikes and air raids. The intensity of the fighting has increased, said Cherevatyj, according to the Unian agency. On Thursday alone, 165 Russian soldiers were killed and another 216 wounded, he claimed.
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Russia denies breakthrough, Ukraine speaks of smaller land gains
The Russian Ministry of Defense, however, denied reports of one breakthrough Ukrainian troops. “The statements that individual Telegram channels spread about “breakthroughs in the defense lines” in several places do not correspond to reality,” said the ministry on Friday night on Telegram.
“The overall situation in the special operations area is under control.” Regarding Bakhmut, the Ministry of Defense only spoke of the “continuation of the liberation of the western part of Artemovsk (Soviet name of the city) with the support of the air force and artillery”. There were no details from Moscow.
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From the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense it was said on Friday that there had been minor gains in terrain not far from Bachmut. “Our defenders advanced two kilometers in the Bakhmut section,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar wrote on Telegram on Friday. In the city itself, no positions had been abandoned during the week and the Russian enemy had suffered heavy losses. The information could not be checked any more than that of the other party.
Bachmut used to have more than 70,000 inhabitants. The city is 95 percent under Russian control and has now been almost completely destroyed. (csr/dpa)
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