The Ukrainian army and Russian mercenary Wagner forces have reported further Russian withdrawals around the city of Bakhmut, as Kiev continued its biggest advance into the city in months ahead of a long-awaited counter-offensive.
Ukraine said it repelled a day of Russian attacks in and around the devastated eastern city on Thursday, gaining up to 1 km in places.
The head of the Wagner Group, which is leading the Russian assault on Bakhmut, said his troops had also advanced up to 400 meters (more than 1,300 feet) in parts of the city.
“We are pushing Bakhmut all the way to the end,” said Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in an audio recording posted on his Telegram channel.
Prigozhin has said Wagner fighters are on the verge of driving Ukrainian troops from their last built-up foothold on the western edge of the city. But he also accused Russian regular forces of abandoning terrain north and south of the city, increasing the risk of encircling Russian troops inside.
“Unfortunately, Russian Defense Ministry units have withdrawn to 570 meters north of Bakhmut, exposing our flanks,” Prigozhin said in his latest voice message on Thursday.
“I appeal to the top leadership of the Defense Ministry – in public – because my letters are not being read,” Prigozhin said, addressing Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
“Please don’t give up the flanks,” he said.
Reporting on progress in Bakhmut, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian forces were achieving their “military goals”.
“From now on, we control the southwestern part of Bakhmut,” she said.
Russia attacked Bakhmut all day on Thursday after “significantly strengthening” its forces in the city by bringing in most of its reserves, but all “attacks were repelled,” she said.
Russia’s defense ministry has acknowledged some withdrawals from positions near Bakhmut over the past week, but denies Prigozhin’s claims that the flanks are crumbling or that it has withheld Wagner ammunition.
Ukrainian forces took the “tactical initiative and made tactically significant gains around Bakhmut in counterattack operations on Thursday,” the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest briefing on the conflict.
“The limited nature of Wagner’s offensive operations in Bakhmut compared to local Ukrainian counterattacks underlines the loss of Russian initiative in the area,” said the Washington, DC-based think tank.
3/ #Prigozhin‘s attempts to blame the Russian military for failures around #Bakhmut cause some ultra-nationalists to accuse him of using the Battle of Bakhmut to satisfy his personal ambitions. https://t.co/x4d8VUsgOm
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) May 19, 2023
Bakhmut ‘mousetrap’
Declaring victory in the blackened ruins of Bakhmut, described by both sides as a “meat grinder,” would be Moscow’s only prize for its massive winter offensive that failed elsewhere along the front.
Kiev says its tactic in Bakhmut is to lure Russian troops into the city’s urban warfare area, so as to weaken Russian frontline defenses elsewhere before Kiev’s planned counterattack.
The area around the city, once home to 70,000 people in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, has been the focus of fighting for months.
Oleksander Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said in a social media post this week that Wagner’s troops had “climbed into Bakhmut like rats in a mousetrap”.
“The enemy has more resources, but we are destroying his plans,” he said.
On Thursday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy praised his troops and the country’s air defenses amid days of complex missile and drone attacks on Kiev and other cities, which have largely been repulsed with the resultant downing of incoming Russian missiles.
“First of all, the defense brigades did a good job, they fulfilled the most important strategic tasks, but now is not the time to give details,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly speech.
“Second, the offensive brigades are doing a good job, we are preparing,” he said, adding that no details could be given.
“Third, in terms of protecting civilians, the Air Force is doing a great job… Our priorities for this week, next week, and for the foreseeable future are additional air defense systems, additional missiles, training and aircraft, and long-range weapons. And this will be fulfilled.”
Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, said Russia’s repeated rocket attacks on Kiev — so far nine this month — were a sign of Moscow’s desperation.
Kiev remains Putin’s maniacal and unattainable goal. Symbolic places in Kiev are the target of Russian missile strikes. The Kremlin needs those pointless and super-expensive attacks for Russia on the capital to increase the level of patriotic hysteria in the country. In Russia,…
— Oleksiy Danilov (@OleksiyDanilov) May 18, 2023
Moscow attacked Kiev’s “symbolic places” because it needed to “raise the level of patriotic hysteria in Russia,” Danilov wrote in a tweet.
In Russia, a “process of despair and disappointment among the authorities is developing against the background of the failed offensive and the failures at the front,” he added.