Russia reinforces the siege of Bakhmut, but fails to break its Numantian defenses

Despite the fact that according to the mercenary boss Wagner’s group, Evgeny Prigozhincity Bakhmutin the Donetsk region, is currently the epicenter of the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv “practically surrounded”, the Ukrainian army continues to defend its positions and resist the overwhelming attack of the occupation forces. The commander-in-chief of the local eastern group of forces, General Alexander Sirski, went to the city yesterday to inspect the units fighting to prevent the city from falling into Russian hands.

According to the report of the press service of the eastern group of troops, «the enemy does not lose hope of capturing Bakhmut. He continues to assemble a well-trained force composed of the strongest Wagner squads and regular units of the Russian army. Fierce fighting is taking place in the city itself and its surroundings. This is the second time in a week that Sirski has visited his troops in Bakhmut. The previous one came on February 25 and reported the imminent arrival of reinforcements.

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian general stated that “the enemy is suffering significant losses, but they are not giving up their attempts to break through the defenses.” According to him, Russia employs “the most bloodthirsty mercenaries of the Wagner group”. Just this Friday, Prigozhin, the leader of those paramilitary units, addressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a Telegram video, urging him to withdraw his troops.

In his propagandistic tone, the Wagner boss warned that his men “practically surrounded” the city and that, according to him, “there is only one way left” to leave the area. «If we faced a professional Ukrainian army beforewho fought against us, today we see more and more elderly people and children. They fight, but their lives are short, a day or two at most,” Prigozhin threatened, and then showed an old man and two teenagers next to him begging to be allowed to get out of there. “Give them a chance to leave the city, it’s practically surrounded,” he repeated.

However, according to the Ukrainian publication Ukrainskaya Pravdareferring to information from the National Center of Resistance, Prigozhin recorded his video “not in Bakhmut, not even in the suburbs, because the pictures of the place from which he addresses the President of Ukraine show that he was in the city of Paraskóvievka”, whose download Wagner announced on 20 . February.

The National Center of Resistance described message Wagner’s boss about “provocation, part of a disinformation campaign aimed at spreading panic among the population” who still remains in Bakhmut. The same source claims that “it is not the first time that Prigozhin pretends to be on the front line, but in reality he is in the back” and gives an example of a photo allegedly taken in the Soledar salt mines, which is actually a cave in the town of Vladimirovka.

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian military command admitted that the situation in Bakhmut was “extremely tense” in the face of the Russian advance. On the same day, Zelensky admitted that he had noticed an “increase in the intensity of fighting” around the city, which was almost completely destroyed and had a population of 70,000 before the start of the war, but now barely exceeds 4,000, according to local authorities. The Ukrainian General Staff did not provide details on the situation in the city this Friday, limiting itself to noting that the army “repelled 85 Russian attacks on the entire front in the last 24 hours.” On Wednesday, the spokesman for the Eastern Command, Serguii Cherevati, denied in statements to AFP that the withdrawal from Bakhmut was underway.