Russian troops and mercenaries rained artillery on the last access routes to the besieged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut yesterday, bringing Moscow closer to its first major victory in half a year after the bloodiest fighting of the war.
The head of Russia’s Wagner private army, speaking in a video recorded some 7km (4 miles) north of Bakhmut, said the city, which has been blasted to ruins, was now almost completely surrounded with only one road still open for Ukraine’s troops.
Reuters observed intense Russian shelling of routes leading west out of Bakhmut, an apparent attempt to block Ukrainian forces’ access in and out of the city.
A bridge in the adjacent town of Khromove was damaged by Russian tank shelling.
Ukrainian soldiers were working to repair damaged roads and more troops were heading towards the frontline in a sign that Ukraine was not yet ready to give up the city.
To the west, Ukrainians were digging new trenches for defensive positions.
Russia’s RIA state news agency released a video clip showing what it said were Wagner fighters walking by a damaged industrial facility.
One fighter is heard saying Ukraine’s army is destroying infrastructure in settlements near Bakhmut to prevent the Russian encirclement.
The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, visited Bakhmut yesterday for briefings with local commanders on how to boost the defence capacity of frontline forces.
Victory in Bakhmut, with a pre-war population of about 70,000, would give Russia the first major prize of a costly winter offensive, after it called up thousands of reservists last year.
It says it would be a stepping stone to capturing the surrounding Donbas region, an important war aim.
Ukraine says the city has little intrinsic strategic value but that the huge losses there could shape the course of the war.
It recaptured swathes of land in the second half of 2022 but its forces have now been on the defensive for three months.
“Units of the private military company Wagner have practically surrounded Bakhmut,” Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video that Reuters determined was filmed on a rooftop in a village to the north of the city centre.
“Only one route (out) is left,” he said. “The pincers are closing.”
He called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to order a retreat from Bakhmut to save his soldiers’ lives.
The camera panned to show three captured Ukrainians – a grey-bearded older man and two boys – asking to be allowed to go home.
The commander of a Ukrainian drone unit active in Bakhmut, Robert Brovdi who goes by the name “Madyar”, said in a video posted on social media that his unit had been ordered by the military to withdraw immediately.
He said he had been fighting there for 110 days.
Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy commander in the National Guard of Ukraine, told Ukrainian NV Radio that the situation was “critical”, with fighting going on “round the clock”.
“They take no account of their losses in trying to take the city by assault. The task of our forces in Bakhmut is to inflict as many losses on the enemy as possible. Every metre of Ukrainian land costs hundreds of lives to the enemy,” he said. “There are many more Russians here than we have ammunition to destroy them.”
The past few days have seen alarm in Russia at its own potential vulnerabilities after Moscow reported a number of drone attacks on targets deep within Russia, followed by what it said was an armed cross-border raid on Thursday.
President Vladimir Putin told his Security Council yesterday to step up “anti-terrorism measures”.
Zelensky, for his part, visited wounded soldiers at a military hospital in Lviv.
One, shaking the president’s hand from bed, apologised that he could not stand up.
“That’s okay,” Zelensky said. “The time will come and you will rise.”
In Washington, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced another round of military aid for Ukraine, a package of ammunition and other support valued at $400mn.
The United States has provided nearly $32bn in weaponry to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022.
Moscow, which says it has annexed nearly a fifth of Ukraine, accuses Kyiv of posing a security threat.
Ukraine and its allies say the invasion was an unprovoked war to conquer land.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, pointing to US military interventions around the globe, accused the United States of hypocrisy yesterday after Blinken said Moscow cannot be allowed to wage war in Ukraine with impunity.
The two men met briefly on the sidelines of a G20 gathering of foreign ministers in India.
Blinken had said failure to oppose Russia in Ukraine would encourage “would-be aggressors everywhere that they may be able to get away with it too”.