Ukrainian city Bakhmut is ‘holding out against all odds,’ Zelensky says
Mike Brest
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Russian and Ukrainian forces continued the fierce battle in the contested city of Bakhmut on Monday, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky describing his troops’ performance as “against all odds.”
Ukrainian Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, who oversees operations on Ukraine’s eastern front, visited troops defending the outskirts of Bakhmut and nearby Soledar on Sunday, the Ukrainian leader also said in his nightly address Sunday.
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“Bakhmut is holding out against all odds. And although most of the city is destroyed by Russian strikes, our warriors repel constant attempts at Russian offensive there. Soledar is holding out. Although there is even more destruction there, and it is extremely hard,” Zelensky explained. “There is no such piece of land near these two cities, where the occupier would not have given his life for the crazy ideas of the masters of the Russian regime. This is one of the bloodiest places on the front line.”
A Russian mercenary organization, the Wagner Group, is leading the Russians’ war in Bakhmut in Ukraine, which has resulted in significant numbers of casualties.
Wagner, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, has roughly 50,000 members deployed to Ukraine, and they had lost roughly 1,000 soldiers in recent weeks, National Security Council coordinator John Kirby told reporters late last month.
The Institute for the Study of War reported in its latest update on the war that Prigozhin may be attempting to exploit natural resources around Bakhmut financially, hence their fixation on capturing the city.
“An unnamed White House official stated on January 5 that the United States believes Prigozhin seeks to extract salt and gypsum from mines in the Bakhmut area for monetary gain,” the report read. “Prigozhin attempted to justify the importance of mines around Bakhmut and Soledar (which Russian forces have struggled to capture from Ukrainian defenders) on January 7, stating that these mines have ‘unique and historic defenses’ that act as a ‘network of underground cities.’”
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A senior Biden administration official described the situation in the area as “quite a lot of vicious fighting,” in which Russia is making some “incremental progress” at “great cost to themselves.”
It’s “clear that Russia’s military took a backseat to the Wagner forces and they began attacking Bakhmut in late May,” the official told reporters last week. “And here we are in early January. And it’s just really a lot of Russian blood spilled there over Bakhmut, specifically with respect to Prigozhin’s personal involvement and an intense focus on this.”
In addition to the fighting in Bakhmut, Russia shelled different parts of the Donetsk region, while the Kharkiv region was targeted with a missile strike and some shelling. The two sides, on Sunday, also carried out a prisoner exchange with a total of 100 soldiers returning to their respective sides. They’ve agreed to 36 such exchanges since the war began.