OUR Ukraine said today that he expects “very soon to capitalize” on Russian fatigue in Bakhmut, the epicenter of the fighting in East End countries and where Russian forces, with a paramilitary group Wagner on the front line, they suffered significant losses.

“The attacker does not lose hope of capturing Bakhmut at any cost, despite losses in manpower and equipment,” Alexander Shirsky, commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, told Telegram.

Russian troops mobilized en masse in and around Bakhmut are “losing considerable strength and exhaustion,” he said.

“Very soon we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we once did near Kiev, Kharkov, Balakeya and Kupyansk,” he said, citing previous Ukrainian military victories.

General Sirsky once again praised the “superhuman courage and superhuman bravery” of the Ukrainian military in the face of the Russian invasion.

Zelensky’s visit

Yesterday, on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited this zone of fierce fighting for the second time in three months, where he found himself “on the front lines” along with the Ukrainian military.

The Russian army, along with the Wagner paramilitary group, surrounded Bakhmut from the north, east, and south, making it difficult for the Kievites to resupply.

But they are resisting, at the cost of heavy losses also on the Ukrainian side, the strategy of the military command of Kiev, aimed at a war of attrition, exhausting the Russians, before the expected Ukrainian counter-offensive in the near future.

While the strategic importance of Bakhmut himself is disputed by experts, Moscow would like to declare a military victory after several humiliating defeats last summer and fall that prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to mobilize hundreds of thousands of reservists and convicts from prisons and then appoint a new commander of operations in Ukraine.

The city of Bakhmut, which had a population of 70,000 before the Russian invasion that began in February 2022, is now completely destroyed and almost completely devoid of civilians.

^{Source: APE, AFP, Reuters.}