Chasiv Yar: On Friday, Russian troops and mercenaries rained artillery on the last access routes to the besieged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, bringing Moscow closer to its first major victory in half a year after the bloodiest fighting of the war.
According to the head of Russia's Wagner private army, the city, which has been blasted to ruins in Russia's more than seven-month onslaught, is almost completely surrounded, with only one road remaining open for Ukrainian troops.
Reuters witnessed intense Russian shelling of routes leading west out of Bakhmut, an apparent attempt to obstruct Ukrainian forces' access in and out of the city. Russian tank shelling damaged a bridge in the nearby town of Khromove.
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Ukrainian soldiers were repairing damaged roads, and more troops were heading to the frontlines, indicating that Ukraine was not yet ready to give up the city. To the west, Ukrainians were digging new trenches for defensive positions.
The Russian state news agency RIA released a video clip depicting Wagner fighters walking by a damaged industrial facility. One fighter is heard saying that Ukraine's army is destroying infrastructure in settlements near Bakhmut to prevent Russian encirclement.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine's ground forces, visited Bakhmut on Friday for briefings with local commanders on how to improve the defence capacity of frontline forces.
After calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists last year, a Russian victory in Bakhmut, with a pre-war population of about 70,000, would be the first major prize of a costly winter offensive. Russia claims it will be a stepping stone towards capturing the surrounding Donbas industrial region, a key war goal.
Bakhmut was known for salt and gypsum mines prior to the war, and Ukraine claims the city has little strategic value but that massive troop losses there could shape the course of the conflict.
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Wagner CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin stated as much in a video that Reuters determined was shot on a rooftop in a village about 7 km (4 miles) north of the city centre. "Units of the private military company Wagner have practically surrounded Bakhmut," Prigozhin said.
There is only one remaining exit, he declared. The pincers are getting smaller.
To save the lives of his soldiers, he urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to issue an order for a retreat from Bakhmut. A grey-bearded older man and two boys, who were three captured Ukrainians, were seen pleading to be allowed to return home as the camera panned to them.
In a video shared on social media, Robert Brovdi, also known by his alias "Madyar," the commander of a Ukrainian drone unit operating in Bakhmut, declared that his unit had received an immediate withdrawal order from the military. He claimed that he had fought there for 110 days.
Fighting was going on "round-the-clock," according to Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy commander in the Ukrainian National Guard, who spoke to Ukrainian NV Radio.
"They make no allowance for their losses incurred while attempting to take the city by force. The goal of our forces in Bakhmut is to cause the enemy as many losses as they can. Every square metre of Ukrainian territory costs the enemy hundreds of lives, he claimed. Russians are present in greater numbers than we have weapons to kill them.
After Moscow reported a number of drone attacks on targets deep inside Russia, followed by what it claimed was an armed cross-border raid on Thursday, there has been concern in Russia over its own potential vulnerabilities in recent days. On Friday, President Vladimir Putin urged his Security Council to intensify "anti-terrorism measures".
For his part, Zelenskiy paid a visit to injured soldiers at a military hospital in Lviv. One apologised for his inability to stand up while shaking the president's hand from his bed. That's fine, Zelenskiy remarked. When the time is right, you'll stand up.
During a nighttime video address in which he thanked soldiers for "firmly and bravely" defending the city, Zelenskiy made no mention of the fighting in Bakhmut.
Military expert Oleh Zhdanov predicted that commanders would soon decide to leave Bakhmut and cited unconfirmed reports that some units had already left. There is a risk of being encircled," he said in a late-Friday YouTube commentary.
The $400 million package of ammunition and other support was announced by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington as part of another round of military assistance for Ukraine.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the US has given the country close to $32 billion in aid. At the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden thanked going to visit German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for "profound" assistance on Ukraine and Scholz said it was essential to convey that willing to back Ukraine will proceed "as long as it takes and as lengthy as is essential.
As promised in January and anticipated to form the nucleus of a new Ukrainian armoured force, Germany produces the Leopard tanks. Even though he oversaw a significant change in policy from a nation that was Russia's top energy customer on the eve of the war, Scholz has come under fire from some Western allies for taking a cautious public stance towards arming Ukraine.
Oleksii Makeiv, the ambassador for Kiev in Berlin, claimed that Germany was now playing a more proactive role in arming Ukraine. Moscow, which asserts that it has annexed almost 5% of Ukraine, charges pro-Western Kiev with being a security threat. The invasion, according to Ukraine and its allies, was an unprovoked war of conquest.
On Friday, after Blinken said Moscow cannot be permitted to wage war in Ukraine with impunity, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States of being hypocritical by citing U.S. military interventions around the world. On the sidelines of a G20 foreign ministers meeting in India, the two men had a brief encounter.
