Russia confirmed this Tuesday that Bakhmut
is a key objective of its
military offensive in Ukraine, determined to defend that eastern city practically surrounded and devastated by months of fighting.
The Russians have been trying since the summer to take the town in the Donbas basin,
the scene of the bloodiest battle
since the start of the invasion of Ukraine just over a year ago.
Both parties have acknowledged high human losses, without giving figures.
"This city is an important defense center for Ukrainian troops in Donbas. Capturing it will allow new offensive operations, breaking into the defense lines of the Ukrainian armed forces," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said during a meeting. televised with military officials.
In recent weeks, the Russians, led by the Wagner paramilitary group, have gradually advanced and seem to already control access to the city from the north, east and south.
An aerial image of Bakhmut, at the end of February.
AFP photo
an extreme situation
Ukraine has vowed to continue to defend Bakhmut, although one of its soldiers in the area told AFP that
he considered its fall inevitable
and that some units had begun to withdraw.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky revealed on Monday that he had asked his General Staff
to "find the appropriate forces"
to continue defending Bakhmut.
The advisor to the Presidency Mikhailo Podoliak affirmed that in the Ukrainian army there is a "consensus" on "the need to continue defending the city and exhausting the enemy forces."
Outside Bakhmut, some Ukrainian soldiers said that
Kiev is losing control of the town.
"Bajmut will fall,"
an exhausted soldier in the town of Chasiv Yar, 10 km west of the front line, told AFP.
Some Ukrainian units have started to withdraw "in small groups", he added.
A Ukrainian tank in the surroundings of Bakhmut.
Photo Reuters
According to Kiev, there are currently fewer than 4,000 civilians left in Bakhmut, compared to the
more than 70,000 inhabitants
it had before the Russian military intervention.
To strengthen Kiev's forces, Poland announced that it will send
ten Leopard tanks this week.
slaughter
Ukraine claimed to have identified a soldier whose execution went viral in a video shared on social media.
kyiv therefore called for an investigation by the International Criminal Court.
In the recording, an alleged prisoner soldier is seen standing in a trench, smoking a cigarette, shot down with a burst from an automatic weapon after shouting
"Glory to Ukraine!"
"According to preliminary data, the deceased is a soldier of the 30th mechanized brigade, Tymofii Mikolaiovich Shadura," the Ukrainian army said on Telegram.
Aerial images of Bakhmut, recorded with a drone.
AP Photo
The soldier disappeared on February 3
while participating in the fighting around Bakhmut, the armed forces explained.
AFP could not independently verify where or when these images were filmed or whether they showed, as claimed by Ukrainian officials, a prisoner of war.
Zelensky claimed that
the video captures the "brutal killing"
of a Ukrainian soldier by Russian forces.
"We will find the murderers," he promised.
The president will receive the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, in kyiv on Wednesday, who arrived in Poland on Tuesday.
In Belarus, Russia's only European ally, President Alexander Lukashenko
reported the arrest of more than 20 people
in connection with the alleged sabotage of a Russian military plane near Minsk last month.
The main suspect, presented as a Russian-Ukrainian who worked for Kiev's special services, as well as "more than 20 of his accomplices who were in Belarusian territory" have been detained to date, Lukashenko said, quoted by the state agency Belta. .
The spokesman for Ukrainian diplomacy, Oleg Nikolenko, denied that the main suspect worked for Kiev and
denounced "a new attempt to create an artificial threat."
In late February, the Belarusian opposition in exile claimed that a Russian military plane had been destroyed at the Machulishchy airfield near Minsk.
The press indicated that it was an A-50 surveillance plane.
The Kremlin declined to comment on the incident, but Lukashenko acknowledged Tuesday that
a Russian army A-50 plane had been attacked.
Belarus is not directly involved in the Russian offensive in Ukraine, but lent its territory for the initial assault a year ago.
AFP Agency
bp
look also
Battle of Bakhmut in Ukraine: "The war of attrition is always more favorable to the defender than to the attacker"
War in Ukraine: Almost surrounded, Ukrainian soldiers push back the Russians
