A Ukrainian commander said his soldiers have been pushing back Russian troops in Bakhmut in recent days as fighting continues for the city of Donetsk ahead of an impending counter-offensive in Kiev.
General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said that Kiev’s troops repelled “numerous attacks” in the Lyman direction and that “enemy attempts to take our positions were unsuccessful”.
“The enemy took casualties, we captured 10 enemy soldiers,” he said, according to a translation of comments cited by the Ukrainian Military Media Center.
Syrskyi described how, despite high Russian losses, new groups of fighters from the Wagner Group, other private military companies and paratroopers rushed into the battle, despite the fact that “the enemy does not take control of the city”.
Ukrainian soldiers ride in a military truck near the frontline town of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region on April 30, 2023. A Ukrainian commander said his forces repelled Russian attacks in the city of Donetsk. DIMITAR DILKOFF/Getty Images
“The situation is quite complicated,” he added, “at the same time, in some parts of the city, the enemy faced counterattacks from our units and abandoned some positions.” Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.
Syrskyi’s comments come amid an assessment by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank that Russian troops are still making advances in some parts of the city but their advance has been slowing.
Meanwhile, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday that 20,000 Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine – half of them Wagner Group fighters – had been killed since December. Ukraine has also suffered heavy casualties.
Most of the troops were killed in brutal trench warfare for the city, which Russia has repeatedly claimed is on the verge of capture.
Moscow’s attempt at a “winter offensive in the Donbass largely by Bakhmut has failed,” Kirby said, comparing Russian casualties in the city to those seen in some of the most intense fighting of World War II, including the Battle of the Bulge, a major German offensive near the end of the war .
It is widely expected that Kiev will soon launch a counteroffensive to retake areas in the east and south of the country, with much at stake for both sides.
Kyiv’s success is likely to reinforce the justification for continued Western support for Kyiv. It could also widen the gap between Russia’s ability to wage war and Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and retake occupied lands, Leon Hartwell, a visiting fellow at LSE IDEAS, the London School of Economics’ foreign policy think tank, told Newsweek.
“Russia has lost 8,000 to 16,000 weapon systems such as tanks, artillery systems and naval vessels,” he said. “So far, Western sanctions have proven quite effective in slowing down Russia’s ability to replace these military systems.”
“If Russia suffers further significant casualties during the spring offensive, it could accelerate the trend of deploying older generations of military systems on the Ukrainian battlefield and replacing existing military systems with inferior parts.”