Russia claims progress in the Bakhmut war. Russian forces advanced in Bakhmut on Sunday, while a top Ukrainian general said his men were holding the lines through the city, which was nearly destroyed in some of the heaviest action of the 14-month war.
The Russian defense ministry said airborne units reinforced the north and south after securing two western blocks. Russia sees Bakhmut as a springboard to eastern Ukraine.
“Bakhmut frontline,” Ukrainian Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi posted on Telegram. “Defense continues.”
“We hit the enemy, often unexpectedly for him, and continue to hold strategic lines,” he wrote.
Reuters couldn’t corroborate combat reports.
Wagner military force leader Yevgeny Prigozhin claims 80% city control. However, Kyiv has regularly dismissed troop withdrawal rumors.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy pledged to defend the city.
“It is impossible for us to give up on Bakhmut because this will [help] expand the battle front and will give the Russian forces and Wagner chances to seize more of our lands,” Zelenskiy told Al Arabiya on Sunday.
On Sunday, the Russian-appointed governor of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region dismissed a U.S. think tank allegation that Ukrainian soldiers had occupied the Dnipro’s eastern bank.
“There is no enemy foothold on the left (eastern) bank of the Dnipro river… our military completely controls that territory,” Vladimir Saldo posted on his Telegram channel.
The Institute for the Study of War said that Ukraine had “established positions” on the eastern bank “at what scale or with what intentions” based on Russian military bloggers embedded with Moscow’s forces.
Russia withdrew from the western bank last year as part of a series of moves that favored Kyiv.
Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command, told Ukrainian television that the assessment predicted “very powerful shelling” in west bank districts near Kherson and Beryslav.
“Reacting to such information, the enemy has significantly intensified its attacks on the opposite bank,” she stated. She reported 30 structures destroyed, including a school, and civilian injuries.
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