Zelensky vows not to retreat from Bakhmut as Russian forces look to make first major wartime gain

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed not to withdraw from Bakhmut as Russian forces invaded the devastated eastern city that they had tried to capture for six months at the cost of thousands of lives.

Less than a week ago, a Zelensky adviser said the defenders could withdraw from Bakhmut and fall back to nearby positions.

But Zelensky chaired a meeting Monday where top military commanders “spoke in favor of continuing the defense operation and further strengthening our positions in Bakhmut,” his office said.

Later, in his late-night video address, the president said his aides unanimously agreed to go ahead with the fighting, “not back down” and bolster Ukraine’s defences.

Zelensky’s top adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said the decision to withdraw was not made due to “a consensus among the military about the need to continue defending the city” and crushing enemy forces “while building new defense lines.” .

By pressing defense, Ukraine has exhausted Russia’s main combat-ready groups and trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian servicemen for a possible counteroffensive, he said.

Heavy Russian shelling targeted the city in the Donetsk region and nearby villages as Moscow waged a three-sided assault to try to break down Bakhmut resistance.

The nearby villages of Chasiv Yar and Kostiantynivka came under heavy shelling, which damaged cars and houses and started a fire. No casualties were immediately reported.

Police and volunteers evacuated people from Chasiv Yar and other frontline towns in an operation hampered by lost bridges and constant artillery fire that has barely left a house standing.

The Russian forces have not been able to deliver a coup de grace that would allow them to seize Bakhmut. Analysts say he has no major strategic value and his capture is unlikely to serve as a turning point in the conflict.

The Russian push for Bakhmut reflects the Kremlin’s broader struggle to gain momentum on the battlefield. The full-scale invasion of Moscow on February 24, 2022 soon stalled, and Ukraine launched a largely successful counteroffensive.

During the extremely cold winter months, the fight has largely stalled.

The importance of the city has become largely symbolic.

For Russian President Vladimir Putin, prevailing there would ultimately bring good news from the front.

For Kiev, the show of courage and defiance reinforces the message that Ukraine is holding on after a year of brutal attacks, justifying continued support from its Western allies.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin endorsed that view Monday, saying during a visit to Jordan that Bakhmut has “more symbolic value than … strategic and operational value.”

Moscow, he added, continues to “push in large numbers of poorly trained and ill-equipped troops” into Bakhmut, while Ukraine patiently builds “combat power” elsewhere with Western military support ahead of a possible spring offensive.

Still, some analysts question the wisdom of ordering the Ukrainian defenders to hold on much longer. Others suggest that a tactical withdrawal may already be underway.

Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at the Can Studies Center in Arlington, Virginia, said Ukraine’s defense of Bakhmut has been effective because it has exhausted the Russian war effort, but Kiev should now look ahead.

“Bakhmut’s tenacious defense achieved much, wasting Russian manpower and ammunition,” Kofman tweeted late Sunday. “But strategies can reach points of diminishing returns, and since Ukraine is trying to muster resources for an offensive, it could impede the success of a larger operation.”

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, said kyiv’s smartest option now may be to withdraw to positions that are easier to defend.

“Ukrainian forces are unlikely to withdraw from Bakhmut in one fell swoop and may seek a gradual withdrawal to exhaust Russian forces through continued urban warfare,” ISW said in an assessment published late Sunday. .

The Battle of Bakhmut has exposed Russian military shortcomings and bitter divisions.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the millionaire owner of the Wagner Group military company that spearheaded the Bakhmut offensive, has been at odds with the Russian Defense Ministry, repeatedly accusing it of failing to supply his forces with ammunition.

On Sunday, he again criticized military high command for being slow to deliver promised munitions, questioning whether the delay was due to “red tape or treason.”

On Monday, Prigozhin said in a post on Russian social networks that the situation in Bakhmut “will turn out to be a ‘pie’: the filling is the parts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine surrounded by us (in the case, of course, if there is a complete encirclement of Bakhmut), and the shell is, in fact, the Wagner Group.

Bakhmut has acquired an almost mythical importance. It has become like Mariupol, the port city in the same province that Russia captured last year after an 82-day siege that eventually boiled down to a giant steel plant where Ukrainian fighters held out alongside civilians.

Moscow sought to consolidate its rule in Mariupol. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu toured part of the city’s reconstructed infrastructure: a newly built hospital, a rescue center and residential buildings, the defense ministry said.

Ukraine’s top military commanders have vowed to continue to defend the besieged city of Bakhmut, where Russia hopes to score its first major wartime victory in more than half a year, and will strengthen its defences, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

Amid some of the bloodiest fighting of the more than a year-long invasion, Moscow says capturing the city would be a step toward its main goal of seizing all of the territory in the surrounding Donbas region.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces reported late Monday that the city and surrounding areas were under “constant attacks” as “loss is not taken into account by the enemy.”

After Russian gains in recent weeks, at the culmination of a winter offensive, Ukrainian troops have been reinforcing positions west of Bakhmut in apparent preparation for a possible withdrawal.

However, on Monday night, Zelensky said that at a meeting of senior military officials he had asked the commander of the regional grouping and the commander-in-chief of Ukraine how they proposed to proceed.

“Both generals responded not to withdraw but to strengthen (our defenses),” he said in his late-night speech.

I told the commander in chief to find the appropriate forces to help our guys in Bakhmut.

The intense battle has depleted artillery reserves on both sides, with thousands of shells being fired daily along the eastern and southern fronts. kyiv’s European allies are working on a deal to purchase more munitions for the fight.

The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force, which is leading the assault on Bakhmut, said on Monday he needed more ammunition, reinforcements and cover support from the regular army if he was to win the battle.

Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s appeal came amid signs of a deepening rift between him and the Russian Defense Ministry, whom he has bitterly criticized for months and accused of deliberately starving its men of ammunition, accusation which he has denied.

“I knock on all doors and sound the alarm about ammunition and reinforcements, as well as the need to cover our flanks,” he said in a statement released by his press service.

‘If everyone is coordinated, without ambition, without mistakes or tantrums, and they carry out this job, we will block the Ukrainian armed forces. If not, everyone will be screwed.

There was no immediate response from the Russian Defense Ministry.