‘No space not covered with blood,’ fighting roars on in Ukraine’s Bakhmut
Lviv, Ukraine/Moscow, Dec 28 (EFE).- Ukrainian and Russian troops continue to engage in vicious fighting in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, where both sides are battling for small territorial gains at a cost of high death tolls.
Intense battles in the east are particularly concentrated around the mining city of Bakhmut.
“Last year, 70,000 people lived there. Now only a few civilians are left there. There is no place that is not covered with blood,” Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Facebook post Wednesday.
“There is no hour when the terrible roar of artillery does not sound. Still, Bakhmut stands. Our defense forces stand. Ukrainian Donbas stands.”
While Russian troops continue to engage in fierce battles with Ukrainian soldiers in the city, positive news for Moscow is in short supply.
Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov has reported “active military operations” but no territorial gains for Russia in Bakhmut.
Located some 65 kilometers to the north of Donetsk, the capital of the region of the same name, much of which has been under pro-Russian control since 2014, Bakhmut is a strategic crossroads for transportation and communication.
The United States think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said in its daily report Tuesday, that “Russian combat losses are likely forcing the Russian military in the Bakhmut area to use squad-sized assault groups.”
The ISW said that without reinforcements, the Russian army was unlikely to capture Bakhmut.EFE
mos-int/jt
