The Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was destroyed after several months of fighting
The chief of staff of the Ukrainian army said that the battle for Bakhmut, the Ukrainian city that Russian forces have been trying to capture for several months, has begun to “calm down”.
Officials in the West had suggested earlier this month that between 20,000 and 30,000 Russian forces were killed or wounded in Bakhmut last summer.
But the commander, Valery Zaluzhny, said that the “tremendous efforts” of the Ukrainian forces succeeded in repelling the Russian forces.
Moscow is eager to win this battle after the Russian army failed to make significant gains on the ground in the recent period.
Despite this, military analysts believe that Bakhmut does not have great strategic value, as they consider its importance at the present time symbolism.
Lieutenant General Zaluzhny posted details of the current situation in Ukraine on his account on the social networking site Twitter, after he spoke to Admiral Tony Radkin, Chief of Staff of the British Army, about the situation there.
These statements are the latest batch of positive signals from Ukrainian officials regarding the battle in Bakhmut.
The commander of the Ukrainian Expeditionary Forces, Oleksandr Sersky, said the Russian forces were “exhausted” near Bakhmut.
Sersky added that while “the Russians have not lost hope of capturing Bakhmut at any cost despite the loss of lives and equipment, the Russian forces are still losing a lot of strength.”
“We will soon take advantage of this opportunity as we did in Kiev, Kharkiv, Balaklia and Kubyansk,” he said, referring to the successful Ukrainian counterattacks last year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the battlefront in Bakhmut earlier this week after his last visit there last December.
Zelensky’s office released a video showing the president in an old warehouse handing out medals to some soldiers he described as “heroes”.
The United Kingdom said last Wednesday that the Ukrainian counter-offensive in western Bakhmut could provide a respite for the supply route to the city, and could also cause the Russian offensive to lose its “limited momentum”.
However, the British statement in this regard stated that “the Ukrainian defenses are still at risk of being encircled from the north and south.”
The British Institute for the Study of War said that despite the numerical superiority of Wagner’s mercenaries, the Ukrainian forces are exhausting that group, “which may enable Ukraine to continue carrying out future attacks that have not yet been determined.”
The Wagner Group, a private mercenary group, is at the heart of the Russian attack on Bakhmut. The leader of the group is betting his reputation and his fighters on bringing down this city.
About 70,000 people lived in Bakhmut before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but now there are only several thousand.
And if the Russian forces control Bakhmut, Moscow will come closer to controlling the entire Donetsk region, consisting of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia illegally annexed to its lands last September.
