Russian troops and mercenaries have rained artillery on the last access routes to the besieged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, bringing them closer to their first major victory in half a year after the bloodiest fighting of the war.
The head of Russia’s Wagner private army, speaking in a video recorded 7km north of Bakhmut, said the city — which has been blasted to ruins — was now almost completely surrounded with only one road still open for Ukraine’s troops.
“Units of the private military company Wagner have practically surrounded Bakhmut,” Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said, appearing in combat uniform in a video filmed north of the centre of Bakhmut.
“Only one route (out) is left,” he said.
“The pincers are closing.”
He called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to order a retreat from Bakhmut to save his soldiers’ lives.
The camera panned to show three captured Ukrainians — a grey-bearded older man and two boys — asking to be allowed to go home.
Reuters observed intense Russian shelling of routes leading west out of Bakhmut, an apparent attempt to block Ukrainian forces’ access in and out of the city.
A bridge in the adjacent town of Khromove was damaged by Russian tank shelling.
Ukrainian soldiers were working to repair damaged roads and more troops were heading towards the frontline in a sign that Ukraine was not yet ready to give up the city.
To the west, Ukrainian soldiers were digging new trenches for defensive positions.
The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, visited Bakhmut on Friday for briefings with local commanders on how to boost the defence capacity of frontline forces.
“The enemy is not giving up its hope of capturing Bakhmut and continues to build up forces to occupy the city,” the press service said.
Victory in Bakhmut, with a pre-war population of about 70,000, would give Russia the first major prize of a costly winter offensive after it called up hundreds of thousands of reservists last year.
It says it would be a stepping stone to capturing the surrounding Donbas region, an important war aim.
The commander of a Ukrainian drone unit active in Bakhmut, Robert Brovdi who goes by the name “Madyar,” said in a video posted on social media that his unit had been ordered by the military to withdraw immediately.
He said he had been fighting there for 110 days.
Both sides say they have inflicted devastating losses in Bakhmut.
Ukraine has said its forces are still holding out there, while acknowledging that the situation has deteriorated this week.
Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy commander in the National Guard of Ukraine, told Ukrainian NV Radio the situation was “critical,” with fighting going on “round the clock”.
“They take no account of their losses in trying to take the city by assault.
The task of our forces in Bakhmut is to inflict as many losses on the enemy as possible. Every metre of Ukrainian land costs hundreds of lives to the enemy,” he said.
“We need as much ammunition as possible. There are many more Russians here than we have ammunition to destroy them.”
In the past few days, alarms have been raised in Russia at its own potential vulnerabilities after authorities reported a number of drone attacks on targets deep within Russia, followed by what it said was an armed cross-border raid on Thursday.
President Vladimir Putin was shown on television on Friday telling his Security Council to step up “anti-terrorism measures”.
Mr Zelenskyaa, for his part, visited wounded soldiers at a military hospital in Lviv.
One, shaking the president’s hand from bed, apologised that he could not stand up.
“That’s OK,” Mr Zelensky said.
“The time will come and you will rise.”
