Ukraine says Bakhmut battle pins down Russia's best units
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[March 10, 2023]
By Olena Harmash
KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine has decided to fight on in the ruined city of
Bakhmut because the battle there is pinning down Russia's best units and
degrading them ahead of a planned Ukrainian spring counter-offensive, an
aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
The comments, by Mykhailo Podolyak, were the latest signal of a shift by
Kyiv this week to continue the defence of the small eastern city, site
of the war's bloodiest battle as Moscow tries to secure its first
victory in more than half a year.
"Russia has changed tactics," Podolyak said in an interview published by
Italy's La Stampa newspaper. "It has converged on Bakhmut with a large
part of its trained military personnel, the remnants of its professional
army, as well as the private companies."
"We, therefore, have two objectives: to reduce their capable personnel
as much as possible, and to fix them in a few key wearisome battles, to
disrupt their offensive and concentrate our resources elsewhere, for the
spring counter-offensive. So, today Bakhmut is completely effective,
even exceeding its key tasks."
Russia has made Bakhmut the main target of a winter offensive involving
hundreds of thousands of reservists and mercenaries. It has succeeded in
capturing the eastern part of the city and the outskirts to the north
and south, but has so far failed to close a ring around Ukrainian
defenders there.
Kyiv, which had seemed at the start of March to be planning to withdraw
to positions west of the city, announced at the start of this week that
its generals had decided to reinforce its troops in Bakhmut and fight
on.
In a morning update, the Ukrainian general staff reported a large number
of attacks along the front and said "the enemy is not halting its
attacks on Bakhmut".
Moscow says capturing Bakhmut would be a step towards capturing all of
Ukraine's Donbas industrial region, a major objective. Russian Defence
Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday seizing the city would punch a
hole in Ukrainian defences and let Moscow advance deeper.
The intense trench warfare, described by both sides as a meat grinder,
has led to huge losses. But Kyiv's decision to stay and fight rather
than withdraw was a sign it believes Russia's losses are far worse than
its own.
MOSCOW SHORT OF MISSILES?
After making gains throughout the second half of 2022, Ukrainian forces
have been mostly on the defensive since mid-November, while Russia has
gone on the attack with troops called up in its first mobilisation since
World War Two.
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A view of emergency workers at the site
of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in
Kyiv, Ukraine March 9, 2023. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich TPX IMAGES OF THE
DAY
But apart from around Bakhmut, the Russian winter offensive has
largely failed. Meanwhile, Kyiv is awaiting a surge in Western
military aid expected in coming months for an offensive once muddy
ground dries in late spring.
Kyiv and the West also saw signs of exhaustion in Russia's latest
mass salvo of missile strikes on Ukrainian targets.
Russia fired hundreds of millions of dollars worth of missiles
across Ukraine on Thursday, including an unprecedented six of its
hypersonic kinzhal missiles, touted as a superweapon for which NATO
has no answer. It is only believed to possess a few dozen kinzhals.
The barrage killed civilians, including a family buried under rubble
while they slept in their homes near Lviv, 700 km from the
battlefield. But otherwise it appeared to have achieved little, with
damaged power systems mostly quickly restored.
The worst damage appears to have been in the eastern city of Kharkiv,
where the regional governor said around 500,000 people were still
without power on Friday morning.
It had been three weeks since the last similar Russian attack, the
longest lull since such strikes began in October. Previously, Moscow
had been unleashing such attacks roughly every week, challenging
Ukraine's ability to repair infrastructure before the next
onslaught.
Britain's ministry of defence said on Friday the reason for the
longer lull was probably that Moscow was running out of missiles and
now had to wait between barrages for its factories to produce them.
"The interval between waves of strikes is probably growing because
Russia now needs to stockpile a critical mass of newly produced
missiles directly from industry before it can resource a strike big
enough to credibly overwhelm Ukrainian air defences," it said.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by
Angus MacSwan)
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