Kiev –
Ukraine now in awe. The reason is, the city of Bakhmut which is in Ukraine Timur most likely fell into Russian hands.
This warning was delivered by NATO. This statement came after months of heavy fighting in the city of Bakhmut.
Reported by the news agency AFPThursday (9/3/2023), head of Wagner and Kremlin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin said on social media on Wednesday (8/3) that his troops “have captured the entire eastern part of Bakhmut”, a salt mining town with a pre-war population of 80,000 .
The fierce fighting around Bakhmut has been the longest and bloodiest in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for more than a year, which has devastated large swathes of Ukraine and displaced millions of people.
“What we are seeing is that Russia is deploying more soldiers, more troops and what it lacks in quality they are trying to make up for in quantity,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Stockholm on the sidelines of a meeting of European Union defense ministers.
“We cannot rule out that Bakhmut will eventually fall in the coming days,” said the head of the US-led military alliance, adding that “this does not necessarily reflect a turning point in the war”.
Previously, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had warned in an interview with CNN what could happen if Bakhmut fell into the hands of Russian troops.
“We understand that after Bakhmut, (Russian troops) can go further and attack nearby cities in the Donetsk region,” Zelensky said.
“They can go to Kramatorsk, they can go to Sloviansk, that will be an open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other cities in Ukraine, towards Donetsk,” Zelensky said in an interview broadcast Wednesday (8/3).
Meanwhile, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told military officials during a televised meeting last Tuesday that taking control of the town would allow “further offensive operations” in eastern Ukraine.
(one/dec)
