The ferocity of the attack and the destruction it caused is due to a fierce attempt by the Russians to achieve a strategic and symbolic victory after retreating to other battlefields, Kim Sengupta reports.
Find your favorites in your Independent Premium section, my profile
A young woman is among citizens receiving food aid in Bakhmut, a risky procedure with Russian drones flying overhead and shells bombing the city.
The bombing and missile movements are so constant and intense that calm is unnatural. But it is in those brief periods of relative calm that the population that remains in this damaged village emerges from underground shelters to seek sustenance.
Time is running out for those who come to collect food and water, as well as for the volunteers distributing the food. Russian drones fly overhead and gatherings of others have been the subject of strikes. There is anxiety among those who wait in line and relay when they can leave with their ration.
“Every time I faint, I’m afraid something bad will happen, so I try to be as quick as possible to get things done. This is the way to survive,” says Kateryna Voloshina, hurrying through the rubble and craters carved into the city’s streets.
“Life can end very suddenly here. Two other people on my street were killed; One of the bodies is still there under his destroyed house. They haven’t gone to dig it up yet.
A space bombed and burned in the Tsvetmet district of Bakhmut, which is the constant bombardment of Russian troops.
“The husband came here to get things. It will have to be a bad feeling to know that his wife’s frame is still there. “
Kateryna stops to look at the pale blue sky on a sunny autumn day. “It’s smart to have a little warmth on your skin, even if it’s for a short time. But we will have to wait a long time to get it right,” he says earlier. Returning home with her two children and an elderly aunt.
As in many other cities and towns in Donbass, citizens have stayed here despite violent attacks, rejecting the official recommendation to leave and paying a fatal price.
The ferocity of the attack on Bakhmut, as well as the death and destruction it caused, is due to a feverish Russian attempt at strategic and symbolic victory after retreating to other battlefields in the face of impressive Ukrainian advances.
Destroyed in Zabakhmutka district of Bakhmut
Moscow has ordered the evacuation of civilians from Kherson in the south as Ukrainian forces renew their offensive. In the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, a number of Russian strongholds, Izyum, Kupyansk and Lyman, fell temporarily.
But Bakhmut is an exception. After taking near Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk in June, the Russians crowded here, taking a series of peripheral spaces and advancing towards the center. Taking Bakhmut would open the way to the main cities of Donbass: Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russian commanders of “madness” as they continue to attack the city. “Day after day, for months, they are leading other people to their deaths, concentrating the point of artillery attacks,” he said Thursday.
Zelensky warned in the past about the seriousness of what is happening, stressing that “a very serious scenario persists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the greatest danger is near Bakhmut, but we still maintain our positions there. “
The mercenaries of the Wagner Group, led by Vladimir Putin’s best friend and confidant, Yevgeny Prigozhin, play a more important role here than in other operations supported by tanks and artillery.
Houses bombed clashes with Russian forces in the village of Opytne near Bakhmut
Wagner has fought on behalf of the Kremlin in arenas, adding Syria, Libya, Central Africa and, most recently, in the Sahel, where his infantrymen replaced French forces in Mali. Their performance in Ukraine had been mixed, but in Bakhmut they seem to be doing well, especially compared to the poorly trained and armed Russian infantrymen thrown to the front.
“We hear that Wagner is recruiting into prisons to serve in this country. They are desperate like all Russian servicemen,” said Ruslan, a sergeant with Ukraine’s 57th Motorized Infantry Brigade.
“But the ones we see seem quite experienced; we captured a guy who had been in Libya. Maybe they will get a special bonus to fight in Bakhmut; They check it very hard. “
Elders are helped to inventory the ruins of Bajmut
“There are also deficient troops, basically from the NRL and the DNR [separatist republics of Luhansk and Donetsk]. They are sent into the night operations of the first wave, as sacrifices in reality. The more experienced arrive behind them or take other routes to check out the entrance of the city. They have been active in the eastern sector.
Russian forces led through Wagner recently entered the southern suburbs of Ivanhrad and Opytne. These were retaken by the Ukrainian 93rd Brigade, which rushed to this front, but part of it fell back into enemy hands.
Ukrainian commanders that the defense of Bakhmut, with the risks that his fall would bring, is a distraction from the offensive in the south where the Russians are fortifying Kherson.
Apartment bombed in Bakhmut
Yet despite slow progress, Prigozhin, Wagner’s boss and Putin’s friend, is wary of proclaiming triumphs.
“The scenario near Bakhmut is difficult,” he said on Telegram. “Ukrainian troops are offering decent resistance, and the legend of the fleeing Ukrainians is just a legend. Ukrainians are guys with the same iron balls as us.
Prigozhin has been publicly scathing about the workings of the Russian army in the war, and the good fortune of his fighters would help him gain political strength in Moscow. But is he making excuses for an imaginable failure?Fighting spirit?
But Ukrainian resistance comes at a price. An army doctor, exhausted by endless hours of paintings under fire, said he had to deal with between a hundred and 120 wounded a day. “That’s a lot of people who want to be evacuated,” he said. But good news: we can save about 90% now, and that’s much more than in the past. “
In fact, the dropout rate has increased for Ukrainians. The death toll when The Independent reported from Donbass this summer was more than a hundred each day, with around two hundred more injured.
Blankets distributed through charity volunteers in Bakhmut, where shelling has cut off strength and others have no hot water.
But the waves of relentless attacks are debilitating for many soldiers. “Sleep is what I miss the most. When you’re so tired that you start making mistakes, that’s what worries me the most: putting me and my friends in danger. “” says a gunman with the Zodiac call sign. The 37-year-old former employee of the structure was hospitalized for a month with shrapnel in his right leg. “I came back to find out that they [the Russians] had taken ground. But they also lose a lot. Their commanders will have to be under Putin’s orders to take this position at all costs,” he said.
Since The Independent’s last visit, much of Bakhmut has been destroyed by artillery and tank bombardment. What were once landmarks — the Palace of Culture, the football stadium, the main hotel, a mechanical portions factory — have been reduced to charred shells, as have the wine amenities the region is famous for.
The population of 75,000 has been reduced to about 10,000 since the beginning of the war. Without power and temperatures are expected to drop below freezing in the coming weeks, volunteers have brought wooden stoves for those who remain.
Smoke rises from an almost constant Russian in Bakhmut
Sitting curled up in a frayed blanket, Oleksandr Zhuk, 68, looks out the window at what was once his pride and joy, his award-winning garden. It is now a burnt piece of floor covered in rubble after a missile attack two months ago.
“I’m going to take care of the flower beds, which stopped blooming, and then prepare our autumn vegetables,” she says. Now it’s all gone.
“But it’s just things, you know; Flowers and plants are beautiful, but they are just things. Just like the buildings we lost. A people is people, and those who have left will return. “
They will live here again one day, I am sure, and then we will be our Bakhmut.
A young woman is among citizens receiving food aid in Bakhmut, a risky procedure with Russian drones flying overhead and shells bombing the city.
Getty
A space bombed and burned in the Tsvetmet district of Bakhmut, which is the constant bombardment of Russian troops.
Always / Kim Sengupta
Destroyed in Zabakhmutka district of Bakhmut
Always / Kim Sengupta
Houses bombed clashes with Russian forces in the village of Opytne near Bakhmut
Always / Kim Sengupta
Elders are helped to inventory the ruins of Bajmut
fake images
Apartment bombed in Bakhmut
Kim Sengupta / Supplied
Blankets distributed through charity volunteers in Bakhmut, where shelling has cut off strength and others have no hot water.
fake images
Smoke rises from an almost constant Russian in Bakhmut
Getty AFP Images
Want to bookmark your favorite articles and stories to read or refer to later?Start your Independent Premium Club today.