Kiev (EFE).- Russia continues trying to gain full control of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut (east) “despite the losses in men and equipment”, but its assaults are losing strength and the Ukrainian army “will take advantage of it very soon” to drive the Russians out of the area entirely.
It is the x-ray of the situation that the commander of the Ukrainian Land Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, made this Thursday on his Telegram channel, who also explained that the mercenaries of the Wagner group continue to be the main component of the Russian assaults on Bakhmut.
“They are losing strength and oxygen considerably,” said Syrskyi, who assured that the Ukrainian troops “will very soon take advantage of this opportunity as they already did in Kiev, Kharkiv, Balaklia and Kupyansk”, referring to territories previously besieged and occupied by Russia that they have already been released by Ukraine.
Bakhmut has been the hottest spot on the Ukrainian front for months.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) sees signs that Russia has slowed down its operations in the area.
Moscow’s forces have made “marginal gains” in some areas, while Ukraine has launched counterattacks in others.
Some 3,500 Ukrainian civilians resist leaving Bakhmut
About 3,500 Ukrainian civilians refuse to leave the city of Bakhmut.
The Ukrainian authorities have done everything possible to convince these people to evacuate this municipality that before February 24, 2022, when the Russian invasion began, had 84,000 inhabitants, but they have met with “absolute rejection” of the idea. to leave the city.
The civilians who remain in it are in charge of a total of 32 minors, who live permanently in the shelters to protect themselves from the fighting, as reported this Thursday at a press conference by the military leader of the province, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
For her part, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk, yesterday put the number of children still in Bakhmut at 10.
kyiv ordered on March 7 the total evacuation of the civilian population of the city, in which at that time there were about 4,000 civilians.
Zelensky travels to Kherson and visits destroyed critical infrastructure
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky visited the Ukrainian forces defending Bakhmut on Wednesday and today he went to Kherson, in the south of the country.
There he has toured some of the infrastructure destroyed by Russian troops, according to sources from the Presidential office through his twitter account.
The Kherson region was occupied by Russian troops at the beginning of the invasion, but has been partly retaken by Ukrainian troops.