Russia takes east Bakhmut

Ukrainian troops slowly eased out of their most precarious defences in Bakhmut during the last week of February and the first of March but they did not give up the eastern city to Russian forces.

Ukraine’s tactic was likely to limit its losses while continuing to suck in Russian forces into what now ranks as the war’s longest and most hard-fought battle.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has set the conquest of the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, known collectively as the Donbas region, as one of his goals – and Bakhmut in Donetsk is key to that.

“We understand that after Bakhmut, they could go farther,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN. “They could go to Kramatorsk. They could go to Sloviansk. It would be open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine in the Donetsk direction.”

Ukraine made a strategic decision to hold onto Bakhmut for as long as possible, reinforcing it with elite units on Sunday as Russian forces from the Wagner mercenary group entered its northern suburbs.

Zelenskyy said his top commanders were in favour of “continuing the defence operation and further strengthening our positions in Bakhmut”, a city with a pre-war population of about 70,000 people.

He did not elaborate on the reasons but the Institute for the Study of War suggested that Bakhmut has been a meat grinder for Russian forces, diverting them from other parts of the 800km-long (497 miles) front.

“The Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut remains strategically sound as it continues to consume Russian manpower and equipment as long as Ukrainian forces do not suffer excessive casualties,” the United States-based think tank said in a war assessment.