"Apocalypse" in Bakhmut: Ukraine applies new war strategy - regardless of losses
Created: 01/11/2023 11:51 am
By: Franziska Schwarz
Picture taken on December 30: Ukrainian soldiers fire mortar guns on the outskirts of Bakhmut.
© Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP
According to one report, the Ukrainian soldiers have so far countered the Russian attackers with "nimble maneuvers" - but are now becoming more brutal.
New York/Munich - "Keep Bachmut" is currently one of the most important battle cries in Ukraine.
The Russian military has been besieging the city in Donetsk for months.
Now the Ukrainian troops there are switching from defense to attack.
"It looks like an apocalypse," the
New York Times (NYT)
quoted a Ukrainian soldier currently in Bakhmut as saying.
A change in Ukrainian strategy, the US newspaper believes.
However, the new open battles also meant "high losses on both sides".
An
NYT
reporter on the streets of Bachmut draws a comparison to the First World War: impact craters everywhere and the rotting corpses of Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin's fighters.
Will Ukraine change tactics?
"Inflicted heavy casualties on Wagner mercenaries"
Taking Bakhmut would be a rather symbolic victory for Putin.
Strategically, the city is not as important for the Russian invasion of the neighboring country as Cherson or Zaporizhia.
Due to the high losses, Bakhmut is also a national symbol for those who were attacked: for the resistance in the Ukraine war.
After a good 100 days, the Russian mercenary group "Wagner" with its boss Yevgeny Prigoschin is now also involved in the battle for Bakhmut.
Prigozhin on Tuesday (January 10) reported the capture of Soledar, a town not far from Bakhmut.
His statement could not be independently verified at first.
The direct fighting between the two sides must have been fierce, however, according to a Ukrainian military official: the Wagner mercenaries suffered "heavy casualties" in Soledar, although they acted "much more ruthlessly" than Putin's soldiers, he told the
NYT
.
Russia must now send more troops to the region.
He wanted to remain anonymous because of sensitive military information.
Battle for Bachmut: "One of the bloodiest places on the front in the Ukraine war"
Putin's counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, also announced that he would send more soldiers to the Bakhmut area.
It is one of the “bloodiest places on the front,” said the Ukrainian President in his video address on Sunday (January 8).
The direct confrontation with a large number of victims was initially considered in Kyiv to be ineffective, writes the
NYT
.
However, the US think tank Foreign Policy Research Institute states in an analysis from the end of December: “Accepting high shrinkage also made successful war maneuvers possible.”
A municipal employee of the
NYT said that 7,000 of the previous 100,000 residents are currently in Bachmut.
Most fled to the western side of the city river.
The eastern districts meanwhile formed a "panorama of collapsed and burnt-out houses".
(frs)
