„The situation there is the most complicated.our defenders stand strong,“ Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to Ukraine’s internal affairs minister, told Newsweek.
As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nears the one-year mark, the small industrial city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region remains one of the most intense battlegrounds of the war.
Russia and Ukrainian forces have engaged in grueling clashes in the area since July as Moscow remains desperate for its first major battlefield victory since the summer of 2022. Russian troops are fixated on seizing Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, collectively known as the Donbas—a stated war goal of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The battle for Bakhmut has been costly. With intense fighting in the summer months, and clashes increasing in ferocity more recently between Russian and Ukrainian forces around Bakhmut and the nearby salt-mining town of Soledar, Ukrainian troop casualty numbers since the invasion began nearly a year ago are believed to be at least 100,000 dead and wounded.
Although the Bakhmut death toll is unknown, a top Ukrainian military officer claimed in December that between 50 and 100 Russian troops were killed daily in the battle for the city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described the situation on the frontline in Bakhmut as „very difficult“, but so far, Moscow has been unsuccessful in making any strategic advances around the city.
The city has also become an important symbol of Ukraine’s resistance. „Bakhmut holds!“ has become a national battle cry for Ukrainian soldiers, their supporters, and even Zelensky. Preventing its capture then will be key for Ukrainian troop morale as the war drags on.
Many analysts say Bakhmut holds little value itself in strategic terms, but nonetheless believe Russia will use the city as a stepping stone toward its goal of capturing the entire Donbas region—one of Putin’s stated war aims when he launched his invasion last February.
