Pressure rising in Bakhmut as Russian forces make advances, U.K. intelligence says
CBC
Ukrainian forces defending Bakhmut are facing increasingly strong pressure from Russian forces, British military intelligence said Saturday, as intense fighting took place in and around the eastern city.
Ukraine is reinforcing the area with elite units, while regular Russian army and forces of the Russian private military Wagner group have made further advances into Bakhmut's northern suburbs, the British Defence Ministry said in its daily intelligence bulletin on Twitter.
Two key bridges in Bakhmut have been destroyed within the last 36 hours, it said, adding that Ukrainian-held resupply routes out of the city are increasingly limited.
One of those bridges connected Bakhmut to the city's last main supply route from the Ukrainian-held town of Chasiv Yar, about 13 kilometres to the west, it said.
Ukraine's military command said Russia was still trying to surround Bakhmut but said Ukrainian forces had beaten back Russian attacks in the city.
"The enemy does not cease attempts to surround Bakhmut," it said in its morning briefing note on Saturday, adding that over the past day Ukrainian forces had beaten back Russian attacks in Bakhmut.
Russian artillery pounded the last routes out of Bakhmut on Friday, aiming to complete the encirclement of the besieged city and bring Moscow closer to its first major victory in the war in six months.
Amid the fighting, civilians remaining in the area spoke about their daily struggles amid near-constant enemy fire.
Bakhmut resident Hennadiy Mazepa and his wife Natalia Ishkova both chose to remain in Bakhmut, even as fierce battles reduced much of the city to rubble.
Ishkova said Saturday that they suffered from a lack of food and basic utilities.
"Humanitarian [aid] is given to us only once a month. There is no electricity, no water, no gas," she told The Associated Press.
"I pray to God that all who remain here will survive."
The Ukrainian briefing note also said Russian attacks had been foiled in the villages of Ivanivske and Bohdanivka, both of which lie less than eight kilometres west of Bakhmut's city centre.
The capture of those villages, which flank the crucial Bakhmut-Chasiv Yar road on either side, would leave the city on the cusp of total Russian encirclement.
