Ukrainian forces have repelled Russian attempts to advance into the center of the small eastern town of Bakhmut, a senior Ukrainian general said on Tuesday.
The battle for Bakhmut, which has lasted for months, has become one of the bloodiest of the Russian war in Ukraine, which has lasted for almost 13 months.
"Enemy assault groups are trying to advance from the outskirts to the city center, but our defense forces are working and destroying them 24 hours a day," Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukrainian land forces, wrote on the messaging app. Telegram, collects Reuters
He said there was heavy fighting along the eastern front line.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the situation in Bakhmut.
After a cold and snowy winter, the arrival of spring with rain and milder temperatures has returned the mud to the battlefields of Donbas.
The trenches that have been turned into toilets through which soldiers wade and trucks, armored cars and sometimes tanks destroyed after getting stuck in the mud, reports Afp.
Russia has made the capture of Bakhmut a priority in its strategy to seize control of the Ukrainian industrial region of Donbas. If Russian forces capture Bakhmut, it will be Moscow's first significant territorial gain since last summer.
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said no one had believed that Bakhmut would withstand such intense attacks for so long.
He appointed three generals and two colonels who led the defense of Bakhmut and thanked them for their leadership and thousands of soldiers for their bravery.
"...Bakhmut's defense is holding and the possibilities have not yet been exhausted," Malyar said.
Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin told Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in a letter published Monday that the Ukrainian military was planning an imminent offensive aimed at cutting off its Wagner forces from the main body of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine.
In the letter published by his press service, Prigozhin said that the "large-scale attack" was planned for late March or early April.
"I ask you to take all necessary measures to prevent the Wagner private military company from being cut off from the main forces of the Russian army, which will have negative consequences for the special military operation," he said, using Moscow's term for its war. in Ukraine.
It was the first time that Prigozhin had published this type of correspondence with the defense minister, whom he has frequently criticized for the conduct of the war.
The unusual move seemed to have two possible goals: to confuse the Ukrainian commanders and to try to blame Shoigu, rather than Prigozhin, if the alleged Ukrainian maneuver was successful.
Prigozhin said he was providing details of the Ukrainian plan and his own proposal to counter it in an annex to the letter, which he did not make public. He did not say how he knew of Ukraine's intentions.
He said Wagner's forces now controlled 70% of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which they have been trying to capture since last summer in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.
In separate comments posted by a regional Telegram news channel, Prigozhin said there was a "high probability" that the southern Russian city of Belgorod would be one of the targets of the upcoming Ukrainian offensive.
He provided no evidence to support his claim that Ukraine could launch a large-scale attack on a Russian city.
Russia has frequently accused Ukraine of carrying out isolated cross-border attacks using drones and other means. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the incidents, but has called it "karma" from the Russian invasion.
In the coming weeks, thousands of Russian prisoners who have fought for the Wagner Group are likely to be pardoned and released, even though about half of those who were recruited have been killed or wounded,
Evidence from Russia suggests that a promise to release survivors who have fought on the front lines with a group of mercenaries, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, is being fulfilled, according to the latest intelligence update from the British Ministry of Defense.
Certificates issued to the released Wagner veterans claim to have been countersigned by decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Wagner's prisoner recruitment peaked in the fall of 2022, with inmates being offered commutation of their sentences after six months of service.
The sudden influx of criminals, often violent and with recent and often traumatic combat experience, poses a significant challenge to Russian wartime society.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
