The battle for Bakhmut is still going on.
A Ukrainian commander has now denied reports of a withdrawal from the city.
The news ticker.
"
Slaughterhouse
on both sides" around
Bachmut
: Heavy fighting continues
Battle
of
Bachmut:
Wagner boss calls on Volodymyr Zelenskyj to withdraw the defenders
from
Ukraine
Bombing raid
on
Zaporizhia:
Attack by Russia in Ukraine war claims civilian lives
Update March 5, 8:40 a.m
.: Two Ukrainian pilots are currently in the United States to familiarize themselves with F-16 fighter jets.
This is reported by
t-online
, citing the US broadcaster
NBC
.
The US Air Force wants to find out how long it would take to train Ukrainian pilots if fighter jet deliveries were to take place in the Ukraine war.
The broadcaster cites two congressional officials and a senior US military as a source.
Currently, the Ukrainians are being trained on simulators at a US military base in Tucson, Arizona, according to
NBC
.
+
An F-16 fighter jet.
Two Ukrainian pilots are currently in the United States to familiarize themselves with the aircraft.
(archive image)
© Jakub Kaczmarczyk/dpa
Ukraine War: Up to 500 Russian dead and wounded daily
Update from March 5, 6:10 a.m .
: The Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov sees massive losses on the Russian side in the battle for the city of Bakhmut that has been going on for months.
"Russian losses amount to up to 500 dead and wounded every day," Resnikov told "Bild am Sonntag" about the current situation in the contested region in the Ukraine war.
However, according to Resnikov, a possible capture of Bakhmut by the Russian military would have little strategic impact.
"If they take Bakhmut, it won't mean anything for the Donbass," Reznikov told the "Bild am Sonntag".
The city is a "symbolic place" for Moscow.
In view of the use of the private mercenary group Wagner in the fight for Bakhmut, Resnikov spoke of a "kind of competition between different Kremlin towers".
Reznikov said that Russia was using "meat grinder tactics" against Bakhmut, and that for Moscow "soldiers were just cannon fodder."
There is "a difference between Ukrainians and Russians" in this regard.
War in Ukraine: Kiev denies withdrawal from Bakhmut
Update from March 4, 6:50 p.m
.: The Ukrainian military leadership has again denied reports of a troop withdrawal from the embattled city of Bakhmut.
The Russian armed forces had no control over the city in the Donetsk region on Saturday evening.
Eastern Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesman Serhii Cherevatyi told CNN.
The reported withdrawals from the city were therefore only routine troop rotations.
The information cannot currently be independently verified.
Pictures of the Ukraine war: great horror and small moments of happiness
Pictures of the Ukraine war: great horror and small moments of happiness
"Fighting in Bakhmut tends to take place on the outskirts of the city, as the city is controlled by Ukrainian defense forces: the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Border Guard and the National Guard," Cherevatyi explained.
Russian troops and Wagner mercenaries have been trying to encircle the city for months.
Observers therefore expect the Ukrainian troops to withdraw soon in order to avoid major losses.
War in Ukraine: Russia attacks Bakhmut from three sides - situation in the city increasingly precarious
Update from March 4, 11:40 a.m .:
According to British secret services, the situation of the Ukrainian defenders in the embattled city of Bakhmut is becoming increasingly precarious.
The Ukrainian soldiers are under great pressure.
According to a report by the British Ministry of Defense, there is heavy fighting in and around the city.
Bachmut was being attacked by Russians from three sides.
Russian soldiers and fighters from the Wagner mercenary group are said to have taken control of other northern suburbs of the city.
It is said that the Ukrainian army is now deploying elite units in Bakhmut.
In the days before, two bridges had been destroyed.
Among them is a connecting bridge that is important for transport and supplies.
The transport routes under Ukrainian control are therefore becoming increasingly scarce.
Ukraine war: Shoigu apparently visits the front in Ukraine: "You are fighting properly"
Update from March 4, 9:15 a.m .:
According to Russian information, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu inspected the front in the eastern Ukrainian war zone.
Shoigu listened to a situation report at a command point in Donbass and awarded soldiers, the ministry said via Telegram.
“The awards are earned and earned, you fight properly.
We have a lot of work ahead of us,” Shoigu said during the ceremony.
The Russian Ministry of Defense had already reported in mid-January on a visit to the front by Shoigu, before that by two more in December.
However, after evaluating the videos, independent analysts came to the conclusion that the minister was 80 kilometers from the front during the visits.
War in Ukraine: "Slaughterhouse on both sides" around Bakhmut - Heavy fighting continues
Update from March 4, 6 a.m.:
Russian troops are continuing their attacks on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut unabated.
"The enemy is still trying to encircle the city," said the Ukrainian General Staff in its situation report in the evening.
A series of attacks on various focal points around Bachmut were repelled by the defenders.
Meanwhile, the commander of a Ukrainian army unit in Bakhmut reported, according to Ukrainian internet channel
Espreso TV
that parts of some units had been ordered to move to safer positions.
He described the situation as a "slaughterhouse on both sides".
The leader of a Ukrainian drone unit says in a video posted on social media that his unit has been ordered to withdraw immediately.
Update from Friday, March 3, 7:20 p.m .:
On Friday evening, Kiev reported ongoing heavy fighting for the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region.
"The enemy is still trying to encircle the city," the Ukrainian General Staff said in its daily situation report.
A series of attacks on various focal points around Bakhmut were repelled by the Ukrainian defenders.
The Russian military has been trying to capture the city for weeks.
War in Ukraine: Kiev denies reports that Bakhmut is about to be occupied
Update from Friday, March 3, 2:45 p.m .:
In a video message, the head of the Wagner mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigoschin, claimed that the embattled city of Bakhmut was about to be occupied.
Now the National Resistance Center of Ukraine has exposed the report as deliberately misleading and denied the hopeless situation.
The authority's report states that Prigozhin is not on the front line in his video, but according to comparisons of image and map material in the small northern town of Paraskoviivka, which was taken by Russian fighters at the end of February.
The National Resistance Center of Ukraine accuses the Wagner boss of wanting to trigger panic in the Ukrainian population with targeted disinformation and "provoking the top military and political leadership".
As early as January, Prigozhin claimed in a video that he was in a place where he was not, according to news site
Ukrainska Pravda
.
War in Ukraine: Wagner boss announces Bachmut will be occupied soon
First report from Friday, March 3, 1:40 p.m.:
Bachmut/Kiev – After months of bitter fighting for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bachmut, there are signs that Russia will soon occupy it.
The news agencies
AFP
and
dpa
report after a video message from Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozchin.
In it, he claimed that the city was almost completely surrounded and that there was "only one more road" out and asked the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to allow the defenders to withdraw.
Despite rumors that have persisted for days that the Ukrainian side is also preparing for a possible withdrawal and is already moving the front lines behind Bakhmut, Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the Ukrainian Security Council, said, according to the dpa, initially combatively: "Yes, it is
difficult
and tough, but we know how to proceed,” the agency quotes a post on the
RBK-Ukraina
portal .
Battle of Bakhmut: A Russian advance is emerging in the Ukraine war
For weeks, military experts have been emphasizing that an occupation of Bachmut would have far less strategic war effects than the bitter battles, in which hundreds of combatants on both sides lose their lives every day, would suggest.
Nevertheless, for the Ukrainian side, Bakhmut has so far been considered a symbolic fortress in the Donetsk region, which is largely occupied by Russia.
The Russian mercenary group Wagner, on the other hand, seems to want to press ahead with taking Bakhmut, primarily in order to demonstrate their own influence in the Ukraine war.
In the city of Bakhmut, in which around 75,000 people lived before the war, there are said to be barely 5,000 civilians in addition to the defense forces of the Ukrainian army, according to official reports.
Some of the fighters can also be seen in Prigozhin's video for propaganda purposes: Two young men and an old man address the words to the Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelenskyy and explicitly ask him to let them leave Bakhmut.
Prigozhin comments: "Where we used to fight against a professional army, now we increasingly see old people and children".
Theaters of war in Ukraine: Civilians die in Zaporizhia
Away from the Bakhmut front, the fighting for the front lines of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine continues every day.
In many parts of the country, bomb attacks are threatening not only Ukraine's important infrastructure but also the lives of civilians.
A residential building was destroyed in a bomb attack on the regional capital of Zaporizhia on the Dnepr River on Thursday night.
According to a report by the online medium
Ukrainska Pravda,
four people have already been rescued dead from the rubble, and others are still missing.
(talk with agencies)
List of rubrics: © Jakub Kaczmarczyk/dpa
