Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker The city has been a main Russian target despite holding little strategic value Ukrainian forces have looked to regain control of the battered city which has mostly been under Russian control since May 2023 in a battle that has largely reduced Bakhmut to rubble Russian officials have long held that Bakhmut is a key and necessary stronghold for advancement into Ukraine; however Ukraine and its allies have placed less emphasis on the city The majority of Bakhmut's prior citizens fled the city and many still dot the outskirts of the once-sizable metropolis From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox Yahidne and Khromove are also under Russian occupation While Bakhmut may not be a strategically important city for Russia the Kremlin will still "try to hold it as long as possible," Ukrainian lawmaker Yehor Cherniev said to Time more as a show of force than anything else A Ukrainian retreat "should be treated as a routine tactic rather than a harbinger of disaster," he said Ukraine's departure from the city wouldn't be "an operational or strategic setback," Austin said The newspaper prints up to 6,000 copies a week for distribution and each edition "urges readers not to get lost in grief for everything taken from them." Its main aim is to encourage former residents of Bakhmut to "stop waiting to return home and start living," said Ovcharenko A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com Justin Klawans, The Week USSocial Links Navigation Justin Klawans has worked as a staff writer at The Week since 2022 He began his career covering local news before joining Newsweek as a breaking news reporter Justin has also freelanced for outlets including Collider and United Press International saved from destruction by intrepid editor Svitlana Ovcharenko still gives hope and voice to a community in Ukraine Before Bakhmut became famous internationally as a battleground sparkling wine fermented in an old alabaster mine and roses that lined its streets its streets a no man’s land of makeshift cemeteries laced with mines Russian troops destroyed it as they claimed it in a slow campaign between the summers of 2022 and 2023 Ukrainian resistance turned this Donbas town into a byword for courage The last few bottles rescued from the winery sell online for more than French vintages their prices charged by nostalgia and patriotism That reputation is a source of pride but little practical help to its 80,000 residents who scattered west to other cities and town as the fighting raged they have been grappling with a question facing increasing numbers of Ukrainians What happens to a community that may never be able to go home As Donald Trump prepares to move into the White House, promising to end the war in “24 hours” Ukrainian dreams of recovering and rebuilding areas occupied by Russia are fading Any deal is expected to include conceding territory the answer is not – or not only – “move on” A small provincial town on the edges of the steppe it nonetheless inspires passionate loyalty They have replanted the rose bushes that were driven to safety as Russian forces advanced celebrated town festivals in public and reopened their hospital – equipped with evacuated equipment – in the Kyiv satellite town of Irpin They still gather at Bakhmut “hubs” across the country painted in town colours and draped with its flag where local government officials dispense aid and advice in cramped rooms Even though the town ceased to exist in physical form in our paper,” said Vpered editor Svitlana Ovcharenko After an eight-month halt at the start of the war, they now print 6,000 copies a week for distribution across Ukraine Bakhmut’s past is celebrated with a newly popular history column but the paper also urges readers not to get lost in grief for everything taken from them A woman crosses a destroyed bridge in Bakhmut Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images“Time is passing People are getting more and more disappointed “One of our main aims is to inspire people to stop waiting to return home and start living.” Her articles often focus on people from Bakhmut who restarted their businesses elsewhere took up sports or made a success of a new life in ordinary and extraordinary ways in the last three years such as the seamstress who moved to Kyiv and opened a shop in the city’s fashionable central shopping area Ovcharenko sees the contradiction in telling readers to forget shattered individual homes while holding tight to the community formed there during the early months of her own painful exile She left soon after Russia’s 2022 invasion because Bakhmut had been briefly occupied by Russian proxy forces in 2014 and was near the frontline again now she stored the paper’s heavy equipment in a garage and took a few key documents From Odesa she watched the destruction of her home on social media as drone footage captured shelling near her apartment block the first hits on the building and then its final collapse its carefully hidden equipment and century-old archive were reduced to rubble and ashes; both its readers and reporters were displaced The destruction of Bakhmut looked set to bury its newspaper too when the town was near the peak of its grim international fame as a Russian target There were still about 20,000 civilians sheltering in freezing basements inside Bakhmut according to volunteers risking their lives to deliver food and offer evacuations Without electricity or mobile phone coverage and many seemed trapped on the frontline with the conviction they had no other option Ovcharenko thought she might be able to persuade some to leave so I thought I needed to produce at least one edition of the paper where I could put in all the information everything that happened over the last eight months,” she said “I needed to tell them: ‘The world knows about Bakhmut the Ukrainian government still exists and you will be helped – you can even go abroad.’ I looked for people who had already left who could share their stories.” and persuaded the Japanese embassy to pay for three print editions The Bakhmut mayor gave his first interview of the war Astonished residents welcomed the paper’s return and volunteers begged for more Ovcharenko found longer-term support from a project to counter Russian propaganda through journalism managed by Fondation Hirondelle and Ukraine’s Institute for Regional Media and Information “People in frontline areas don’t trust things on Telegram [the social media platform] but they do know the team at their local paper a foreign correspondent based in Ukraine and media mentor on the project what can come in to take their place is Russian disinformation and we have seen how that divides communities.” They support 23 outlets throughout the south and east and two-thirds produce print editions delivered to frontline areas “come hell or high water” Several others are exiled media from occupied cities The last issue of Vpered that went into Bakhmut was distributed in March 2023 by the military The battle had become so dangerous that civilian aid groups were no longer allowed in but soldiers still wanted the handful of remaining residents to get their paper Eventually a grinding fight that some military analysts consider the bloodiest battle of the 21st century drew to a close As Russia claimed control of Bakhmut’s ruined remains more a symbolic victory than a major strategic win Read moreVpered has documented Bakhmut life since 1920 languages and ownership; across wars and invasions from the east and west; and shifts in power between Kyiv and Moscow Founded as the Russian-language “Proletarian of Artyomovsk” – the town had been renamed for a Soviet hero – it became private in 2000 The last Russian-language edition was published on 23 February 2022 The subscriptions and advertising that kept the paper going then are no longer viable and Ovcharenko’s current funding runs out soon The question mark over the paper’s future echoes the bigger questions about the town and people it serves “We don’t want to be dissolved and disappear without a sign as a paper and as a community,” she said even if it is liberated from Russian control is a complicated and emotional issue even for the people who love it most It was so heavily shelled and mined that clearing it would take 10 years, and rebuilding it perhaps another decade, exiles reckon. Some think the battle that turned Bakhmut into a vast cemetery soaked the ground with too much blood for them to ever return. Read more“Maybe it does make sense to build another town “On the other hand if they somehow rebuild Bakhmut in the old place we would go back because it’s unique and special.” Nor can its people get compensation for their destroyed homes to start again elsewhere; one of the many particular challenges for people from frontline and occupied areas relates to compensation for Russian attacks Ukrainian inspectors must visit property affected to assess the extent of damage they can’t make those trips or sign off payouts Ovcharenko said her aim is to ensure that she and readers “do not lose the feeling of being a Bakhmutian although she often struggles to find happiness or even motivation “We all live one day at a time – you don’t plan much for the future This is the archive of The Observer up until 21/04/2025 The Observer is now owned and operated by Tortoise Media Queen City News Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian drone attack left at least seven people dead and a Russian strike on Odesa killed two people Thursday just hours after Kyiv and Washington signed a long-anticipated agreement granting U.S The attack in the partially occupied Kherson region of southern Ukraine which struck a market in the town of Oleshky killed seven and wounded more than 20 people there were many people in the market,” Saldo wrote on Telegram Ukraine sent further drones to “finish off” any survivors a Russian drone strike on the Black Sea port city of Odesa early Thursday killed two people and injured 15 others Oleh Kiper said the barrage struck apartment buildings Videos shared by Kiper on Telegram showed a high-rise building with a severely damaged facade a shattered storefront and firefighters battling flames A drone struck and ignited a fire at a petrol station in the center of Kharkiv Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia had ignored a U.S proposal for a full and unconditional ceasefire for more than 50 days now “There were also our proposals — at the very least to refrain from striking civilian infrastructure and to establish lasting silence in the sky “Russia has responded to all this with new shelling and new assaults.” and Ukraine on Wednesday signed an agreement granting American access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources finalizing a deal months in the making that could enable continued military aid to Kyiv amid concerns that President Donald Trump might scale back support in ongoing peace negotiations with Russia Zelenskyy originally proposed such a deal last year as a way of helping secure Ukraine’s future by tying it to U.S Ukrainian officials said previous versions of the accord would have reduced Kyiv to a junior partner and gave Washington unprecedented rights to the country’s resources but that the version signed Wednesday was far more beneficial to Ukraine Zelenskyy said Thursday that the signing of the minerals deal was the “first result” of the meeting he had with Trump at the Vatican during the pope’s funeral and called the agreement “truly historic.” there were no debts to be paid from past U.S He said the agreement will be sent to the parliament to be ratified and that Ukraine was “interested in ensuring that there are no delays with the agreement.” the agreement is “truly equal” and “creates an opportunity for investments in Ukraine.” “This is working together with America and on fair terms when both the Ukrainian state and the United States America’s top diplomat highlighted the uncertainty of a larger peace deal that the U.S is trying to broker between Ukraine and Russia but they’re still far apart,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” on Thursday night “And it’s going to take a real breakthrough here very soon to make this possible or I think the president is going to have to make a decision about how much more time we’re going to dedicate to this.” former economy minister and current president of the Kyiv School of Economics said that despite what he described as “unimaginable pressure” during negotiations on the minerals deal Ukraine succeeded in defending its interests “This is a huge political and diplomatic win for Ukraine,” Mylovanov wrote on Facebook Mylovanov said the deal does not restrict Kyiv to selling only to American buyers the deal recognizes contributions from both sides: Ukraine’s in the form of revenues from new projects Kyiv residents voiced mixed reactions to the newly signed U.S.-Ukraine economic agreement with many saying they had not yet had time to fully understand the deal’s implications Among those who spoke to The Associated Press about the deal was Diana Abramova who attended a rally in Independence Square demanding information on missing Ukrainian soldiers “Any news is hard to take — whether it’s about negotiations or anything else,” Abramova said “But I still believe and hope that any action will bring us closer to one thing: Ukraine’s victory said she wasn’t familiar with the details of the agreement but remained cautiously optimistic “I don’t know what the terms are — they may not be favorable for Ukraine at all our experts must have weighed the pros and cons expressed frustration and disillusionment with the broader implications of the deal She told the AP she feels terrible that “our land is just a bargaining chip for the rest of the world and that we do not have our own full protection “My vision is that instead of strengthening ourselves I feel sorry for our land and for our people,” she said Reaction to the signing was generally muted in Moscow on Wednesday But the deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council said that Trump had forced Ukraine to effectively “pay” for American military aid with its mineral resources “Now military supplies will have to be paid for with the national wealth of a disappearing country,” he claimed in a post on Telegram chairman of the Russian Civic Chamber’s commission on sovereignty told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that Zelenskyy had effectively handed Ukraine over to “legally prescribed slavery.” A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Russia’s Defense Ministry reported shooting down eight Ukrainian drones overnight on Sunday Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine officially confirmed that the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine dealt a devastating blow to the command post of the 6th motorized rifle division of the Russian army in the Bakhmut area in the temporarily occupied territory of the Donetsk region the strike significantly reduced the ability of the invading Russian Federation forces to exercise control in the Pokrov direction The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine emphasizes that data on the losses of the Russian army are currently being clarified The Ukrainian Defense Forces continue to restrain the enemy's offensive actions and inflict significant losses on him — emphasize the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine missile troops and artillery of the Ukrainian Defense Forces successfully attacked 2 control points seven areas of concentration of enemy personnel The enemy's total combat losses from 02/24/22 to 05/04/25 were approximately: armored combat vehicles — 22403 (+24) units Operational-tactical level UAVs — 34,860 (+163) units automotive equipment and tank trucks — 47141 (+129) units The most important from online.ua in your mail By staying online, you consent to the use of cookies files which help us make your stay here even better Based on your browser and language settings you might prefer the English version of our website "It’s confirmed that the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine recently delivered a powerful strike on the command post of Russia’s 6th motorized rifle division in the Bakhmut area on the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk region," the report stated seriously reduced the Russian forces’ ability to control the Pokrovsk direction The scale of Russian losses is still being clarified "The Defense Forces of Ukraine continue to hold back the Russian armyʼs offensive and are causing them serious losses," the General Staff added The Ukrainian Air Force struck a Russian motorized rifle command post near Bakhmut. This impacted the fighting on the Pokrovsk front, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Telegram "It has been confirmed that in recent days the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces delivered a devastating blow to the command post of the 6th Motorized Rifle Division of the enemy in the Bakhmut area temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk region," the statement reads The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces emphasized that as a result of the strike the ability of Russian occupation forces to conduct command operations on the Pokrovsk front has been significantly reduced The details of enemy losses are still being clarified "The Defense Forces of Ukraine continue to repel the enemy's offensive actions and inflict significant losses on them," the General Staff added Photo: Ukrainian Armed Forces strike Russian army position near Bakhmut (screenshot from deepstatemap.live) It is worth noting that Russia continues to exert pressure on the front in an attempt to break through the Ukrainian defense Ukrainian military officials reported that the occupiers had received orders to reach the administrative borders of Dnipropetrovsk region by May 9 Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi also mentioned that the intensity of the fighting has increased despite the Kremlin's announcement of a so-called "ceasefire" for May 9 The most active front line remains the Pokrovsk direction Ukrainian defenders stopped 113 attacks on the Pokrovsk front yesterday Support our appeals responding to disasters and helping communities worldwide It looks like you’re browsing from the United States Would you like to switch to our World Jewish Relief USA website Just one month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 Ukrainian artist Inna Abramova and her parents fled their home in Bakhmut Left behind were fifty of Inna’s paintings which would later be destroyed along with her home Inna had built a successful artistic career in Ukraine and her life was rich with creativity and collaboration She worked on numerous art projects across Ukraine – in Donetsk and Mariupol – and even exhibited her work abroad in countries like Germany and Spain an organisation dedicated to making art more accessible for everyone But the war took much of what Inna had built: her peaceful life as an artist displayed in Mariupol’s city mall were destroyed when it was bombed by the Russians in 2022 she eventually found a generous host family who supported her for 18 months But when unexpected circumstances forced her to uproot once again she ended up in a homeless shelter before moving back to temporary hotel accommodations It has been a big emotional challenge for her Picking up a paintbrush again is not easy for Inna she’s found inspiration in painting with others Participating in group art sessions has helped her reconnect with her creative self A lifeline came through World Jewish Relief’s STEP Ukraine programme which has supported over 13,000 Ukrainian refugees in the UK to learn English and find employment Over 65% of participants on STEP Ukraine have found work already transforming their ability to rebuild their lives and integrate into their new communities in the UK But STEP Ukraine also provides a much-needed sense of community and Inna was able to build her network with fellow Ukrainians After receiving specialist employment support from her dedicated Employment Advisor she secured a full-time role as a hospital Contact Officer in Cardiff stabilising her life and allowing her to dream of becoming a full-time artist once again dedicate time every day to study something new Inna’s spirit remains unbreakable and she is determined to create brighter days ahead Copyright 2023 The Central British Fund for World Jewish Relief Charity Number 290767 Website by Studio Republic your new go-to podcast to spice up your weekday mornings with relevant news and behind-the-scenes from Brussels and beyond From the economy to the climate and the EU's role in world affairs this talk show sheds light on European affairs and the issues that impact on our daily lives as Europeans Tune in to understand the ins and outs of European politics Dare to imagine the future with business and tech visionaries Deep dive conversations with business leaders Euronews Tech Talks goes beyond discussions to explore the impact of new technologies on our lives the podcast provides valuable insights into the intersection of technology and society Europe's water is under increasing pressure floods are taking their toll on our drinking water Join us on a journey around Europe to see why protecting ecosystems matters and to discover some of the best water solutions an animated explainer series and live debate - find out why Water Matters We give you the latest climate facts from the world’s leading source analyse the trends and explain how our planet is changing We meet the experts on the front line of climate change who explore new strategies to mitigate and adapt Yet between 700 and 1,000 local residents remain most of them living in the basements of apartment buildings The only place to charge phones is in the basement of the building now housing the city administration The exact number of people is impossible to determine because no humanitarian volunteers have come to Kurakhove as Russia continues its drive westward to capture all of the Donbas region Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the situation in Kurakhove technical school and cultural centre have all been destroyed Smoke hangs in the air as bombed-out apartment buildings burn against a backdrop of artillery fire and drones Artillerymen of the 33rd Brigade say they are firing around 50 shells per day on the Kurakhove front indicating critical activity in the Russian army’s offensive operations and the brigade's desperate attempts to stop Russian forces from encircling the city as well as representatives of the police and local Territorial Defence Forces there is little hope of defending the city if it becomes surrounded considering the reality of modern war and modern technologies the logistics could be performed only by drones,” he says which is lined with burned-out civilian vehicles the “road of death,” due to persistent Russian drone attacks Five civilians have been killed while trying to leave No supplies would enter the city without the “White Angels” evacuation group made up of local police officers and volunteers They provide first aid to the wounded and remove the bodies of those killed in shelling all while operating the city's only functioning food store The White Angels bring in vital supplies in an armoured vehicle kitted out with electronic warfare equipment — the only way to enter the city “Without REB (jammers) it is just a lottery you might still have a chance to survive,” Shchus says The only way to escape the city is to travel with the White Angels they risk their lives to evacuate between six and 12 people from different parts of the city and surrounding villages Although children are meant to have been evacuated both from the bombs and from law enforcement officers Among the White Angels' key missions is to find children and persuade their parents to evacuate When this mission is successful and children are removed from the basements many are shocked by the state of the destroyed city suggesting that they have been hiding underground for quite some time After dressing the children in bulletproof vests and helmets the White Angels take them to the nearby city of Kostyantynopil from where other volunteers transport them to refugee registration points in the regional centres of Dnipro or Zaporizhzhia “We evacuate people every day without stopping We just dropped people off in Kostyantynopil and we still have addresses to go through today,” Shchus explains Asked about adapting to work in such challenging and dangerous conditions the police chief worries about the impact on his team I wouldn’t even call it ‘adaptation.’ It's more like an unhealthy state of mind I don’t know how this will influence them socially in the future,” he says “These people are living in inhumane conditions arguing that only President Donald Trump has real leverage over Russian President Vladimir Putin The number includes 1,430 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day "To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement" by Benjamin Nathans which covers dissent in the Soviet Union and Russia today Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on May 5 announced they had facilitated Russian journalist Ekaterina Barabash's escape from Russia to France after she fled house arrest on April 21 (Updated: May 6, 2025 6:22 am)Ukraine's drones target Moscow second night in a row, Russian official claims. Debris from one of the drones reportedly fell on the Kashirskoye Highway The reported attack comes just days before Russia's Victory Day parade and three-day "truce." A Russian drone attack on Odesa Oblast on May 5 killed one and caused damage to local infrastructure "We appreciate that Germany plays a pivotal role in supporting Ukraine throughout the years of war Ukraine is also grateful for your personal commitment," President Volodymyr Zelensky said MPs will be able to ask questions and learn more about the details of the agreement in meetings with Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko May 6-7 MP Serhii Sobolev told the news outlet Suspilne The ratification vote is scheduled for May 8 Attacks against the border villages of Bilopillia and Vorozhba damaged civilian infrastructure and triggered emergency evacuations the regional military administration reported "I look forward to working with President Erdogan on getting the ridiculous war between Russia and Ukraine ended — now!" U.S Putin's Victory Day truce "doesn't sound like much if you know where we started from," Trump told reporters at the White House on May 5 Far-right Euroskeptic candidate George Simion head of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan placed second with 20.99% of the vote and the candidate from the ruling coalition "It requires the continuation of contacts between Moscow and Washington which have been launched and are now ongoing," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said set to operate within the Council of Europe will focus on Russia's political and military leaders by Chris YorkAn aerial view of the city of Bakhmut totally destroyed from heavy battles on Sept Destroyed towns in eastern Ukraine once again the focus of recovery efforts by Ukrainian forces (Libkos/Getty Images)Nearly 20,000 Russian mercenaries died fighting for Wagner Group during the Battle of Bakhmut an investigation by BBC Russia and Mediazona published on June 10 has found The outlets obtained documents shortly after the death of the group's founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin in August 2023 detailing the posthumous payments to relatives of those killed fighting in Ukraine between January 2022 and August 2023 "This document contains more than 20,000 names of those killed," Mediazona writes, adding: "Most of the Wagnerites died in the 'Bakhmut meat grinder' – more than 19,500 people." The numbers roughly confirm the number claimed by Prigozhin himself in May 2023 when he said he had lost more than 20,000 men in the fight for the town Prigozhin's Wagner began to bring tens of thousands of convicts from Russia's prisons into its ranks including those convicted of rape and murder during the group's main recruitment drive in late 2022 Used in combination with the more professional and experienced Wagner units the prisoners proved to be highly effective as an expendable assault force Their main success was the capture of Bakhmut a city in Donetsk Oblast now razed to the ground The report also found 17,000 of those killed were former prisoners, pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin in exchange for heading to the front Using the identification numbers of those killed journalists were also able to determine that at least 48,000 prisoners fought for Wagner during this time Prigozhin later that year launched a short-lived insurrection against the Kremlin in late June 2023 capturing the city of Rostov and marching toward Moscow However, less than 24 hours after starting the rebellion, it was declared over and he announced that he was turning his forces around and returning to base Following an undisclosed deal allegedly brokered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, the warlord was allowed to walk free and then released a video claiming to be in Africa Two months later – on Aug. 23 – a private jet with Prigozhin onboard crashed not far from Moscow, killing him and everyone else onboard officials cited by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Aug the likely cause was a bomb onboard or "some other form of sabotage." A later WSJ piece put the finger of blame on Nikolai Patrushev, Putin's "right-hand man." Chris York is news operations editor at the Kyiv Independent he spent nearly a decade working for HuffPost UK highly relevant issue briefs and reports that break new ground with a focus on advancing debates by integrating foundational research and analysis with concrete policy solutions the Atlantic Council’s experts have you covered—delivering their sharpest rapid insight and forward-looking analysis direct to your inbox New Atlanticist is where top experts and policymakers at the Atlantic Council and beyond offer exclusive insight on the most pressing global challenges—and the United States’ role in addressing them alongside its allies and partners A weekly column by Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe Inflection Points focuses on the global challenges facing the United States and how to best address them UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics UkraineAlert sources analysis and commentary from a wide-array of thought-leaders and activists from Ukraine and the global community MENASource offers the latest news from across the Middle East and independent analysis from fellows and staff Econographics provides an in-depth look at trends in the global economy utilizing state-of-the-art data visualization tools host Alia Brahimi is joined by the Russian photographer and journalist to consider the staggering toll of the “Bakhmut meatgrinder.” They talk through the latest report from independent Russian news platform Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service and David’s methodology for determining which prisoners were recruited and from where David also examines the numbers that were killed the question marks over whether promised death payments were made and why the Wagner Group turned to prisons for manpower in the first place Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative it explores the causes and implications of the growing use of mercenaries in armed conflict The podcast features guests from many walks of life from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters It seeks to understand what the normalization of contract warfare tells us about the world we currently live in and what war could look like in the coming decades Tahani Elmogrbi interviewed the High National Election Commission chairman to get his perspective on the elections in the current environment after Abdullah Batili’s resignation Egypt’s intention to pull out of hostage deal mediation efforts and the continued closure of the Rafah border crossing are alarm bells for Israel The conflict between the opposition-dominated parliament and the appointed cabinet is not new and this is not the first time the parliament has been suspended Through our Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East the Atlantic Council works with allies and partners in Europe and the wider Middle East to protect US interests and unlock the human potential of the region Image: Ukrainian servicemen fire an anti-aircraft gun towards Russian positions on a frontline near the town of Bakhmut REUTERS/Oleksandr Ratushniak TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY Sign up to receive expert analysis from our community on the most important global issues © 2025 Atlantic CouncilAll rights reserved If refreshing the page doesn't resolve the issue you could try clearing the sites browser cache The defense of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region lasted nearly 10 months, from August 2022 to May 2023, and became one of the fiercest battles of the Russian-Ukrainian war. After being occupied by Russian forces, the city was completely destroyed, the relevant video was published by the Unmanned Systems Forces on Telegram Bakhmut was an important railway hub and a center of the salt industry the first blue-and-yellow flag in Donetsk region was raised over the city council building," the military wrote in the video caption the civilian population of Bakhmut exceeded 70,000 The video shows various landmarks and buildings before the war along with footage of what happened to them after the arrival of Russian forces entire streets with houses have been completely wiped out The defense of Bakhmut lasted nearly 10 months The city endured devastating artillery shelling and assaults the Russian army suffered massive losses — around 100,000 killed and wounded more than 80% of whom were from the Wagner PMC units Although Russian forces declared they had captured the city fighting in the surrounding areas continued and Ukrainian drones have regularly documented the scale of the destruction RBC-Ukraine recently reported on the city of Toretsk, which Russian forces are attempting to seize. As of April 2025, only about 48 civilians are believed to remain there. Before the war began, the city had a population of approximately 35,000. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that forces of the Wagner private army, with the support of Russian troops, seized the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. (May 20) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gestures during a meeting with President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Sunday, May 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Bakhmut was “only in our hearts,” hours after Russia’s defense ministry reported that forces of the Wagner private army, with the support of Russian troops, had seized the city in eastern Ukraine. Speaking alongside U.S. President Joe Biden at the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Zelenskyy said the Russians had destroyed “everything.” “You have to understand that there is nothing,” he said. “For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts,” he said. “There is nothing in this place.” The Russian ministry statement on the Telegram channel came about eight hours after a similar announcement by Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin. Ukrainian authorities at that time said that fighting for Bakhmut was continuing. The eight-month battle for Bakhmut has been the longest and probably most bloody of the conflict in Ukraine. Zelenskyy’s comments came as Biden announced $375 million more in aid for Ukraine, which included more ammunition, artillery, and vehicles. “I thanked him for the significant financial assistance to (Ukraine) from (the U.S.),” Zelenskyy tweeted later. Analysts said that a Russian victory in Bakhmut was unlikely to turn the tide in the war. The Russian capture of the last remaining ground in Bakhmut is “not tactically or operationally significant,” a Washington-based think tank said late Saturday. The Institute for the Study of War said that taking control of these areas “does not grant Russian forces operationally significant terrain to continue conducting offensive operations,” nor to “to defend against possible Ukrainian counterattacks.” Using the city’s Soviet-era name, the Russian ministry said, “In the Artyomovsk tactical direction, the assault teams of the Wagner private military company with the support of artillery and aviation of the southern battlegroup has completed the liberation of the city of Artyomovsk.” Russian state news agencies cited the Kremlin’s press service as saying President Vladimir Putin “congratulates the Wagner assault detachments, as well as all servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces units, who provided them with the necessary support and flank protection, on the completion of the operation to liberate Artyomovsk.” In a video posted earlier on Telegram, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said the city came under complete Russian control at about midday Saturday. He spoke flanked by about a half dozen fighters, with ruined buildings in the background and explosions heard in the distance. Fighting has raged in and around Bakhmut for more than eight months. Russian forces will still face the massive task of seizing the remaining part of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control, including several heavily fortified areas. It isn’t clear which side has paid a higher price in the battle for Bakhmut. Both Russia and Ukraine have endured losses believed to be in the thousands, though neither has disclosed casualty numbers. Analysts have said Bakhmut’s fall would be a blow to Ukraine and give some tactical advantages to Russia but wouldn’t prove decisive to the outcome of the war. Russian forces still face the enormous task of seizing the rest of the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control, including several heavily fortified areas. The provinces of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk make up the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland where a separatist uprising began in 2014 and which Moscow illegally annexed in September. Bakhmut, located about 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk, had a prewar population of 80,000 and was an important industrial center, surrounded by salt and gypsum mines. The city, which was named Artyomovsk after a Bolshevik revolutionary when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, also was known for its sparkling wine production in underground caves. Its broad tree-lined avenues, lush parks and stately downtown with imposing late 19th-century mansions — all now reduced to a smoldering wasteland — made it a popular tourist destination. When a separatist rebellion engulfed eastern Ukraine in 2014 weeks after Moscow’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the rebels quickly won control of the city, only to lose it a few months later. After Russia switched its focus to the Donbas following a botched attempt to seize Kyiv early in the February 2022 invasion, Moscow’s troops tried to take Bakhmut in August but were pushed back. The fighting there abated in autumn as Russia was confronted with Ukrainian counteroffensives in the east and the south, but it resumed at full pace late last year. In January, Russia captured the salt-mining town of Soledar, just north of Bakhmut, and closed in on the city’s suburbs. Intense Russian shelling targeted the city and nearby villages as Moscow waged a three-sided assault to try to finish off the resistance in what Ukrainians called “fortress Bakhmut.” Mercenaries from Wagner spearheaded the Russian offensive. Prigozhin tried to use the battle for the city to expand his clout amid the tensions with the top Russian military leaders whom he harshly criticized. “We fought not only with the Ukrainian armed forces in Bakhmut. We fought the Russian bureaucracy, which threw sand in the wheels,” Prigozhin said in the video on Saturday. The relentless Russian artillery bombardment left few buildings intact amid ferocious house-to-house battles. Wagner fighters “marched on the bodies of their own soldiers” according to Ukrainian officials. Both sides have spent ammunition at a rate unseen in any armed conflict for decades, firing thousands of rounds a day. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has said that seizing the city would allow Russia to press its offensive farther into the Donetsk region, one of the four Ukrainian provinces that Moscow illegally annexed in September. Zeke Miller reported from Hiroshima, Japan. 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All rights reserved head of the Italian bishops' conference to carry out a peace mission to try to help end the war.Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood Ukraine says last Russian cruise missile ship in Crimea destroyed; give us Russia’s frozen assets say Kharkiv defendersThis article is more than 11 months oldUkraine says last Russian cruise missile ship in Crimea destroyed; give us Russia’s frozen assets Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the Kharkiv region near Vovchansk say the situation is “hotter” than it was around fallen Bakhmut but now they have the shells to fight back a gunner of Ukraine’s 92nd Separate Assault brigade operating a howitzer “We were positioned in the Bakhmut area before The Ukrainian military says it has destroyed the last Russian warship armed with cruise missiles stationed at the Crimean peninsula the Ukrainian defence forces hit a Russian project 22800 Tsiklon missile ship in Sevastopol on the night of May 19,” the military said Reuters was not able to independently verify the statements There was no immediate comment from the Russian side Russia’s defence ministry on Sunday said Ukrainian forces had attacked Crimea with Atacms missiles Russian drones struck energy sites early on Wednesday and knocked out power to some parts of Ukraine’s northern Sumy region The Sumy regional authority said the drones hit targets in the cities of Shostka and Konotop north-east of Kyiv and near the Russian border Emergency services were working to restore electricity Officials have warned of a possible Russian push into Sumy Ukrainian troops are achieving “tangible” results against Russian forces in the Kharkiv region but the frontline situation near the cities of Pokrovsk Kramatorsk and Kurakhove remains “extremely difficult” More than 14,000 people have been displaced in recent days from the Kharkiv region “Nearly 189,000 more still reside within 25km of the border with the Russian Federation facing significant risks due to the ongoing fighting,” said Jarno Habicht EU countries have formally adopted a plan to fund Ukraine’s defence using profits from $300bn in Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU 90% of the proceeds will go into an EU-run fund for military aid for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion with the other 10% going to support the Ukrainians in other ways The EU expects the assets to yield about €15bn-€20bn in profits by 2027 Ukraine is expected to receive the first tranche in July thanked the EU for the decision but reiterated Ukraine’s goal of seizing the assets themselves is meanwhile pushing fellow G7 nations this week to agree a plan to use Russian assets frozen abroad to back a larger loan to help Ukraine Yellen has said it could be worth up to $50bn to Ukraine The former commander of Russia’s 58th army, Ivan Popov, was arrested on suspicion of “large scale fraud”, state-run Tass news agency reported. Popov, military call sign “Spartacus”, commanded Russian units in southern Ukraine. He criticised his superiors about the deaths of Russian soldiers. More than 3,000 Ukrainian inmates have applied to join the military under a new law. “We predicted this before the adoption of this law,” said Olena Vysotska, deputy minister of justice, adding that more had expressed interest and 20,000 had been identified as eligible. Only prisoners with less than three years to serve can apply. Prisoners not eligible include those found guilty of sexual violence, killing two or more people, serious corruption and former high-ranking officials. Tens of thousands of Russians who fled to Turkey after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine have moved on to other countries, squeezed by residency issues and soaring costs, Reuters has reported. This month, the number of Russians with Turkish resident permits fell to 96,000, down by more than a third from 154,000 at the end of 2022, official data showed. Many who left Turkey headed to Serbia and Montenegro, Reuters said. SupportEN Наталія МазінаЖурналістка It's like seeing the corpse of a loved one... And for someone, it's just a pile of bricks..." Natalia Vyshnevetska, latest Facebook post about a fresh video from Bakhmut. They bought some furniture, paved the yard with asphalt, remodeled and refurbished the house, and moved in. It was November 2021. It's good that dreams come true. But they are worthless if they come at the wrong time. When Natalia Vyshnevetska (originally from the Pokrovsk district) came to Bakhmut for the first time as a student in 1989, she was shocked to find that the city was radically different from others in Donbas: And although 80,000 people had lived there, everything is compact: it's easy to get to any place on foot. Plus, there is a well-developed infrastructure, good roads, many squares and parks, and a gorgeous promenade. It's a nice, cozy city – a real pearl of Donetsk Oblast. There are no others like it," she describes it. "A city of sun, silver poplars, freshly baked bread, salt, the aroma of roses and bitter herbs – with the steppe around it.” So she stayed: she worked as a tax accountant, and in the noughties she started her own business, selling raw materials for cosmetics. Everything was going well: the business was growing, and she dreamed of traveling around the world. Then came 2014. On April 12, separatists declared the so-called "DPR" to be in power in the city. Most of the local authorities supported the Russians: the occupiers were given the keys to the prosecutor's office, police, and city council. The mayor told pro-Ukrainian journalists: "Is a rag on the roof more important to you, or peace in the city?" The only place where the Ukrainian flag flew was a military unit in the center of Bakhmut. There was a lot of old Soviet equipment there. And if the separatists got to it... All they had to do was change the oil and go. That's why Ukrainian Special Forces were thrown into the unit’s grounds by helicopter. The young men were under siege. Although the paratroopers mined the unit around the perimeter, the enemy stormed it several times. Natalia and her husband Valeriy lived across the street and saw those assaults with their own eyes. The occupation of Bakhmut lasted three months, and all the paratroopers came out alive. The city was liberated by Ukrainian troops. The volunteer organization Bakhmut Ukrainskyi, which was formed on the first day of the occupation, remained after the de-occupation. From 2014 to 2022, Bakhmut was a frontline city. Active pro-Ukrainian residents fed the military, cared for the wounded in the hospital, and repaired army vehicles. The coat of arms of Bakhmut features the alchemical sign of salt: a silver stripe in a silver circle. 70% of the salt for the entire empire was mined here. The city developed, and when the Donets Governorate was formed in 1919, Bakhmut became its center a year later! Interestingly, not only to the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in their present-day boundaries but also the Taganrog and Shakhtin districts were subordinated to it. They would later become Russian. The historical name of Bakhmut was restored only in 2016 during the decommunization process. The current occupation authorities now call the city Artemivsk. Or rather, its ruins. Bakhmut was also known for the Artemivske champagne, since kilometer-long underground adits were formed there after the extraction of alabaster. It was a whole underground town, where the temperature is always the same at 12-14 degrees. In Soviet times, a champagne factory appeared there, which produced 25 million bottles a year! Bird's eye view of Bakhmut, June 22, 2023AP Photo / LibkosCossack spirit"When Catherine the Great disbanded the Zaporozhian Sich, Ukrainians settled what is now Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. My ancestors plowed the wild steppe, and built towns and villages. This is all the land of indigenous Ukrainians. My mother told me that 200 years later, in the days of industrialization, people from Russia with a criminal record began to be brought to these territories. It is noteworthy that it was over Bakhmut in the fall of 1917 that the Ukrainian blue and yellow flag was raised for the first time in Donbas. After the full-scale invasion, the Russians destroyed Bakhmut like no other city. "Even under the Nazis in World War II, the city did not suffer so much, although there were very heavy battles. But today's Nazis have destroyed everything. They have a special hatred for Bakhmut. It is because of this great support for Ukraine. Since 2014, every second car in our town has a Ukrainian flag or trident," says Vyshnevetska. With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the volunteers stepped up their activities. Natalia devoted 90% of her time to this: "For more than a month, residents of the city provided food for the 54th Brigade, border guards, troops, and other units stationed in Bakhmut. They received almost no help from the center, because everything went to Kyiv. Everyone realized that if the capital fell, it would be the end. That's why we were buying everything for the military by hook or by crook, from cereal to drones. Under fire, elderly women carried what they had at home to the soldiers—half a kilo of rice and half a kilo of sugar: ‘Give it to the boys’. And now they are called ‘awaiters’. Wherever you look, there are people waiting for their time. But there were more patriots in Bakhmut than in the entire Donetsk Oblast, I can tell you. A lot of local patriots were defending Ukraine and died for it. Bakhmut city, Donetsk Oblast, March 15, 2023AP Photo/Roman ChopWhole life burned downNatalia lived in Bakhmut for almost 30 years. In 2022, she lost her entire life, although she did not die. Her apartment, which she did not sell in time, the house she bought with her husband, her mother's and brother's homes with disabilities burned down. The warehouses where she stored her products burned down. Her mother died in April. She was buried in Bakhmut, but now there is no cemetery there either. It's destroyed. And this is the worst thing for her. "I worked day and night with my husband to get what we had. We managed to take out the fridge, TV and washing machine, some of the goods. This was after it became clear about Bucha and Irpin, how the locals, especially the volunteers, were abused. So we left everything behind, and the military was allowed into all the rooms, even into my brother's house. We believed that Bakhmut was an unbreakable fortress, that no one would surrender it. The military said: 'There will be a lend-lease in the fall, so leave now, and in November you will be home. And in November, it was already scary to enter the city, you could go to get a refrigerator and lose your head," the Bakhmut resident recalls the summer of 2022. The windows in Natalia's house were smashed, and she changed her mind about asking the soldiers to send her those albums: what if another one came and they got hurt? No albums are worth a human life. Now she has no photos of herself under the age of forty, only those stored in her phone's memory. Gradually, the looters cleaned out the entire apartment and the entire city. And then the enemy moved in. "We watched our Bakhmut being burned online. Like crazy people, we didn't sleep a single night, constantly monitoring social media. We saw how the destruction was advancing street by street, closer and closer. And it so happened that our house was the last to be destroyed. Two years have passed, and it should have been accepted that there is no home. But still, when I see videos from Bakhmut, it physically hurts me. I can't watch it: I get upset, I don't sleep well, my blood pressure jumps. My health and nervous system are ruined. Every town and village already has a cemetery of Bakhmut residents. People are dying like flies," Natalia's voice falls silent. When she sees humanitarian aid being distributed somewhere, she barely recognizes her fellow Bakhmut residents. The young, blooming, vigorous people are now black. They have aged decades. Natalia suffers the most from the fact that she cannot visit her parents' graves or put up a monument: "It just kills me. I was uprooted. We have been living in Lubny for three years, and this is not our home, we cannot integrate, it doesn't work. We live with Bakhmut on our minds and that's it. I miss my friends very much, they are all scattered around the world. I believe that a city is about people. I miss my fellow [Bakhmut residents] with whom I was friends, lived, and worked. But I hope that we will see each other again. We were bombed, but that’s okay. There was nothing left of Dresden, and yet it was rebuilt. Bakhmut will be rebuilt too, and I will return." This article is part of the project "Destroyed but Unconquered," in which we tell the stories of cities that were destroyed to the ground and occupied by Russia during the full-scale invasion. We work for you and thanks to you. Be our friend Reporting and writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Philippa Fletcher Bakhmut is currently the main site for temporarily dislocation of Russia's 98th Airborne Division and the 3rd Army Corps The city serves as a logistical hub for the enemy "It has become a kind of logistical hub for the occupiers the enemy has placed and stores ammunition as well as depots with fuel and lubricants there," Voloshyn stated The Ukrainian military also mentioned that there is information suggesting the occupiers have set up field hospitals in Bakhmut's mines to provide medical care for the wounded Bakhmut is located in the northeastern part of the Donetsk region it was a center of Ukraine's salt industry and a railway hub Bakhmut had been a stronghold of Ukraine's defense and prolonged battles left Bakhmut almost completely destroyed Over the past day, 224 combat clashes took place on the front lines. The most intensifying fighting occurred in the Kurakhiv and Pokrovsk directions the Ukrainian Defense Forces continue a military operation in Russia's Kursk region Russia managed to advance more in October than in the previous months of 2024 Russian forces continue their airstrikes on Ukraine Read more about the situation on the front lines and where Russia may launch offensives this winter in our material. How Ukraine lost Bakhmut and Russia won a hollow victory When Yuriy Stetskiv pulled into Bakhmut at the end of April the mission was to cling on for as long as possible a deputy chief of staff of Ukraine's 135th Separate Territorial Defense Battalion had orders to establish a command post on the western edge of the city and defend the last few blocks still in Ukrainian hands Artillery fire crashed around him as he approached the city Inside his armored vehicle — an eight-seater overstuffed with 12 soldiers — his men quietly prayed in the dark It was almost impossible to know what was where Explosions seemed to come from every direction and surveillance drones circled overhead Its use in civilian areas is banned under international law.) Stetskiv said there was an eerie beauty as he watched munitions rain down on the city and compared them to Fourth of July fireworks "Sometimes awful things are beautiful," he said the regional capital some 50 miles north of Bakhmut The former mining city was best known for its sparkling wine and the roses that filled its most picturesque street each summer Yet Bakhmut became a fight that neither side was willing to lose and a symbol of each side's unyielding determination It was "one of those battles that had no strategic value at first glance but gradually assumed value just because political leaders invested value in it," said Mick Ryan a retired major general in the Australian Army who is now a military commentator This account of Ukraine's fight to hold Bakhmut is based on interviews with more than 45 soldiers Business Insider also drew on open-source and official accounts Russian officials did not respond to repeated attempts seeking comment Thousands of men and women had been sent into this fight and yet it's done little to alter the course of this slow and increasingly desperate war When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 Sixty miles from the Russian border in the Donbas it had set a record for "the largest number of roses in one location" after 5,000 flowers were counted along its Rose Alley a major producer of sparkling wine in Eastern Europe two days before Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine Zhukova had been covering the fighting that had torn through eastern Ukraine since 2014 when Russian-backed separatists began a grinding battle to "liberate" the Donbas separatists had briefly seized parts of Bakhmut but were repulsed by Ukrainian forces Reports of a huge Russian troop buildup gave Zhukova a bad feeling as Zhukova monitored the situation in Bakhmut from afar she would learn that her home had been hit She suspects her father's grave will be impossible to find amid the devastation some three-quarters of Bakhmut's population left too The city was regularly hit by blasts fired from a distance but it was difficult to know which way things would go was standing in his garden on Mariupolskaya Street in April when he saw a missile sail over his house a missile crashed next to the home of Natalya Zhyvnovytska in the nearby village of Zvanivka He watched as the big supermarkets closed one by one but fresh fruits and vegetables were scarce he saw barricades being erected in the streets Shelling regularly knocked out the electrical system leaving him without power for hours at a time The idea that Russia would capture Kyiv in a lightning offensive at the start of its "special military operation" had fallen apart almost immediately as the fighting seemed to be getting closer to Bakhmut some 130 miles to the south — taking the strategic port city of Mariupol a rail hub leading into the Donbas just 30 miles north of Bakhmut and then the next stop is Kramatorsk and Sloviansk,'" said Patrick Bury The Kremlin's desperation was on view on September 30 when President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces since much of that territory was still in Ukrainian hands This is where Yevgeny Prigozhin took a major role had founded the Wagner Group to help Russia's incursion into Ukraine after 2014 The mercenaries were known to take on the hard fighting Moscow's professional soldiers tended to avoid According to a chronology of events that Prigozhin would later post on Telegram they started moving toward Bakhmut in October As the pace of fighting increased, the Russian newspaper Izvestia ran a story making the case that Russia's had a centuries-long claim to Bakhmut which it referred to by its Soviet-era name "The history of Artyomovsk is inextricably linked with the history of the Russian Empire," the newspaper proclaimed Bakhmut had become a rare front line where Russia might have the upper hand with each passing week with no major territorial advances the city's symbolic importance seemed to grow "It was clear that this was going to be a hot zone at some point and there was already fighting," said Klara Lisinski that this was going to become the symbol of the war." They were also approaching from the southeast about a mile and a half from the city limits was an asphalt plant — a scattering of low industrial buildings less than a mile from end to end To reach it — whether to bring in supplies or rotate troops in and out — Ukrainian forces had to speed along a road through open fields they tended to make these trips at dawn when visibility was low The rising sun would dazzle them as they sped uphill along the already-ruined road a captain with the 241st Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces "You will be killed immediately by their artillery and their rockets." Holding down the plant was Ukraine's 93rd Mechanized Brigade along with 89 soldiers from Holubenko's unit Holubenko's soldiers were pulled into a grinding 18-hour battle they needed fresh batteries to keep up radio communications One of Holubenko's soldiers — known by the call sign Shuba So Holubenko sent him out with a fresh battery to show the way to a couple of fresh troops Holubenko sent a small team after him to investigate But on their way they did find the body of a Russian soldier — an ominous sign the enemy had penetrated the grounds when Holubenko sent up a surveillance drone he got a better sense of what had probably happened Russian troops had sneaked onto the eastern end of the plant and had the main group of troops of the 93rd surrounded and artillery fire to target the Russian attackers he said — never knowing exactly where Shuba and worried the enemy might have captured his radio not far from where they had spotted the Russian body Holubenko believes Shuba had killed the Russian before succumbing to his injuries They were able to hold down the asphalt plant for another few days before they were forced to retreat As winter set in, Bakhmut and the surrounding area was being described as "the most bloody Months of Russia's long-range attacks were leaving the city in ruins and there were reports from both sides that fierce fighting had broken out in its outskirts Ukrainian soldiers were engaging in close-range trench warfare to stop Russia's advance With surveillance drones hovering over the fields and forests surrounding Bakhmut these trenches could be the only place to take cover they were often just a short distance from enemy lines It was a brutal way of fighting that drew comparisons to World War I a US Marine veteran who joined Ukraine's International Legion remembers having the same thought every time he was driven into the area that December: "Motherfucker this is probably the last 10 minutes of my life." The brutal winter conditions added to the misery of holding down a trench said many soldiers died of hypothermia that winter There were also shortages of the most basic battlefield supplies had freed up soldiers to pile into Bakhmut By December, Wagner received the first significant deployment of fighters recruited from Russia's prisons Their numbers would eventually swell to 50,000 ex-convicts by Prigozhin's estimate — identifiable by the letter "K" sewn into their uniforms According to Ukrainian fighters who faced off against them in Bakhmut these unskilled combatants would form the first wave of fighters Ukrainians took to calling them "zombies." "I don't know what kind of motivations they have — but they are completely fearless," Stepan Golian "They walk through an open field and they just walk and walk." Russian forces also seemed to have a much larger supply of powerful Ukrainian fighters told BI that to close the gap they had resorted to crowdfunding recalled one night when his team lost an advanced drone because this drone was really valuable," he said It was an example of "stupidity and audacity," he said — but they recovered the drone said Ukrainian forces also relied heavily on "wedding drones" — consumer-grade gadgets that in normal times would record life's happiest moments Holubenko said his unit made grenade casings from a 3D printer and then adapted each drone to release a grenade by switching on its light and a second grenade by switching it off On December 20 of last year, Zelenskyy paid a surprise visit to Bakhmut and posted a video showing him handing out medals to reward his "superhuman" troops The scene drew a furious reaction from Russia's ultranationalists who were already incensed at the slow pace of progress in Bakhmut the popular nationalist Telegram channel that translates to Kremlin laundry chided Zelenskyy for staying in Bakhmut for only a few hours before returning to his warm office while "ordinary soldiers were left in a deplorable an intense appetite for news from the front lines was making social-media celebrities out of some Ukrainian fighters One of them was Olga Bigar, a charismatic mortar platoon commander who posted to her large following on TikTok as the "Witch of Bakhmut." Formerly a lawyer and doctoral student in Kyiv when the war broke out Bigar had enlisted almost immediately after the Russian invasion She had arrived at the front in Bakhmut that summer and had been part of the defense of the asphalt plant Bigar was convinced that Russian soldiers had been tasked with taking the city by New Year's her platoon faced wave after wave of Wagner fighters this was part of a massive barrage of attacks aimed at multiple Ukrainian cities at the turn of the new year Again, though, Russia's progress stalled. Prigozhin posted a video in which he was seen with the bodies of fallen fighters were sometimes spending more than a day fighting for a single house While the win didn't carry much strategic importance it marked the first significant territorial seizure in all of Ukraine since July But even in victory, Prigozhin and Russia's top military brass were feuding over who deserved credit "I want to emphasize that no units except for the fighters of the Wagner PMC took part in the assault on Soledar," Prigozhin said the Wagner boss published a video of himself in the cockpit of a Su-24 bomber let's meet in the skies," Prigozhin taunted the first missile hit the Bakhmut Children's Hospital at about 11 p.m Children were no longer being treated there the facility on the western edge of the city had been turned into a stabilization point where wounded soldiers were given emergency treatment while awaiting evacuation to regular hospitals had taken cover from the shelling that preceded it and watched the explosion through a hole in the wall and they ran to their car as the second missile landed Russian artillery rounds struck around them had been taking cover from the artillery fire in the basement and eventually managed to escape from the hospital Among them was a doctor she'd been working alongside an hour before the attack had started had arrived at the scene and found scattered body parts He took a series of graphic pictures showing chunks of flesh and blood smattering the inside of a damaged vehicle The blasts had knocked out windows and left a huge hole in the side of the hospital The attack on the Bakhmut Children's Hospital has not been previously reported The medics said they had little time to mourn They gathered what supplies they could and moved on to their next location leaving the hospital behind in the crumbling city a combat medic with the Territorial Defense Forces remembers one especially difficult day very late in the fight when she was tasked with identifying and labeling "Cargo 200" — a Soviet-era term for war dead except for some art affixed to the wall of the stabilization point that Ukrainian children had sent to cheer up the troops Drawings of flags and tanks and "Glory to Ukraine!" were scrawled across them who had worked as a coordinator of a women's-rights NGO before signing up took one down and tore it up to make name tags She had barely started when she jumped back and she realized it belonged to her best friend she stepped aside so a superior could take over She rarely let the cracks show even in the face of such tragedy saying there was a strong culture of putting on a brave face As the attack on the Bakhmut Children's Hospital showed the jobs of medics could be as dangerous as the soldiers' medics like Sarnatska were no longer permitted to go out to evacuate wounded fighters had been struck as it sped towards an evacuation zone The impact had sent the car flying into the first floor of a building Sarnatska underlined the risk: "If we send four medical crews to evacuate two of them will never return," she said." thousands of civilians were still hunkered down in and around Bakhmut or in denial about how dangerous it was to stay Others saw the Russians as liberators and welcomed their advance remembers driving through Bakhmut one day late in 2022 Explosions seemed to be going off all around him he saw something that made his eyes go wide there's this old woman cycling with two packets of milk," he said The city set up what was known as "invincibility centers" to offer help to residents without electricity Volunteers kept their eyes and ears open for civilians who requested an evacuation One of the last chances to leave Bakhmut was roughly January 25, said Lisinski, the journalist, and Daniel Beiler, another volunteer. A few days after that, the city was closed to aid groups fewer than 8,000 civilians remained in the city People's determination to stay left some of the rescuers perplexed Some stayed even when they "should all be climbing into your van and literally pounding on the glass — 'take me with you 'Can you still buy gum in the store?' And I'm saying and risked their lives making these trips in and out of Bakhmut "The best asset we have is speed," said Mick When moving through areas where they could be shot at Mick remembers one especially surreal rescue in Chasiv Yar the town about 9 miles west of Bakhmut along Highway O-0506 and Mick and a colleague had come to evacuate an older couple Smoke was pouring out of ruined homes and they worried they'd arrived too late "I had this sadness and anger at myself for not getting there earlier," he added It looked as if there was no one there to save "this little old lady comes wandering out of her house," he said gives a massive wave with a big smile on her face." where they met the woman's husband and were treated to breakfast "These big fat fluffy pancakes that they make here that are delicious made from grapes that grew in their garden The Battle of Bakhmut was still grinding on Prigozhin's dissatisfaction with the top brass was increasingly spilling from his social-media accounts A voluble critic of how the war in Ukraine was being waged for Wagner's growing death toll in Bakhmut and accused them of failing to properly equip his forces Questions about the wisdom of Ukraine's strategy in Bakhmut were also bursting out into the open US officials were said to have been advising Ukraine to withdraw for months The Pentagon was now saying publicly that abandoning Bakhmut would not be a "setback" for the larger fight "I think it is more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value," US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in early March he said abandoning Bakhmut would leave an "open road" to other territorial gains After he'd conferred with his military chiefs Even if Bakhmut wasn't a strategic must-win Ukrainians saw Bakhmut as a honeypot for depleting Russian soldiers and artillery and relieving some pressure on front lines elsewhere Engaging them in Bakhmut would thin their ranks elsewhere especially as Ukraine readied its counteroffensive "A lot of people were talking about 'just give them Bakhmut,'" and retake it later of Ukraine's 112th Territorial Defense Brigade "It's always harder to retake each meter of our land than defend it," he said Russian forces had surrounded Bakhmut from the east "The pincers are getting tighter," Progozhin said in a video To lose the roads would be to lose the city Ukraine was fighting desperately to hold down the roads leading into the western part of the city which were necessary to bring in supplies and reinforcements Ukrainians moved between trenches and thin stretches of forest to beat back the Russian advance a pediatrician before he became a platoon commander was among those defending the road to Chasiv Yar "I wasn't born for this," he said "I have a very peaceful profession But he added: "They have killed a lot of children and if I don't kill them they will kill a lot more of us." With his troops facing multiple direct assaults a day and regular poundings from artillery Yabchanka's small platoon was inside a trench that was 5 ½ feet deep since the frozen bodies of four Russian soldiers were there too pushed to the edge and buried under some dirt That day, Yabchanka returned to the trench to find two of his comrades dead. Others in the dugout seemed frozen in shock. What happened next was captured by body cameras worn by Yabchanka and their platoon leader who was known by his call sign Tihiyy — "the quiet one." word came that Russians had entered a nearby Ukrainian trench They could see Russian soldiers closing in to hold their positions — as they took shelter behind whatever stumps or mounds of earth they could spot and the nearby trenches were all back in Ukrainian hands Tihiyy celebrated into the scarred surroundings and Yabchanka says he now fights in his memory "I must do everything so that their life is not wasted for nothing," he said Ukraine's hopes of holding Bakhmut were evaporating the goalpost had shifted: Hold on for as long as possible a US Army veteran of urban warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq arrived in Bakhmut in April as part of Ukraine's 135th Battalion While he officially served as a military instructor (He asked to be referred to by his call sign.) Jackie was stationed in "the Nest" — a few blocks on the western edge of Bakhmut that linked the city and the Road of Life Soldiers would take cover and fire from abandoned homes now frozen in time with wedding photos and books still on the shelves and Jackie said he knew Ukraine couldn't hold it: Instead the job was to wipe out as many enemy troops as possible knowing a withdrawal would eventually come "It didn't make any sense why they couldn't consolidate the city." His assessment of Russia's chances were echoed by Alexander Kots the Russian war blogger who runs the Kotsnews Telegram channel and appears frequently on Russia's Channel One "The enemy is still actively resisting in the western outskirts of the city who posted from in and around Bakhmut through much of the battle "Even from a burning house — he doesn't want to give up The musicians of Wagner PMC are confidently moving forward The flanks are being covered by landing forces and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces One thing that made this fight so perilous was that it was challenging to know where the lines were to move troops and ammunition behind the line of contact "You could stand outside and have a barbecue "If you just watched a video recording of Bakhmut for an hour during a random day — the line of contact Soldiers on both sides sheltered in the basements and lower floors of the city's sturdy Soviet-era buildings and the lower down they were the less likely it was they would be spotted and fired at each a watchful eye connected to deadly weapons A brief respite from the surveillance came twice a day — for an hour in the morning when quadcopters with ordinary sights were installed for daytime surveillance when they'd be replaced by fixed-wing drones with thermal optics Soldiers would use the time to take up new defensive positions everybody gets up out of their holes and start running around," Jackie said By the time Stetskiv rolled into Bakhmut with orders to set up a command center and defend the last Ukrainian-held blocks in the city commemorates the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 With Ukrainian forces holding onto the last sliver of western Bakhmut by a thread it was widely assumed Russia would throw everything at them to mark the triumph at their Victory Day parades Prigozhin posted a video on Telegram threatening to pull out of Bakhmut if he wasn't given more supplies "The military bureaucrats halted all supplies from May 1," Prigozhin claimed — which would have stymied his efforts to win the city ahead of Victory Day celebrations May 9 came and went without Russia taking the city But life did not get any easier for the last holdouts of Bakhmut A couple of blocks ahead of Stetskiv's command post was holding a building at the fringes of Ukraine's control that they "were moving between life and death Prigozhin was forced to deny a report that he proposed sharing Russian intelligence with Kyiv in exchange for ceding territory around Bakhmut and his troops withdrew on May 17 in what he described as a "pretty desperate exit." "Everybody could barely talk because of all the smoke inhalation "Everybody was like they had just gotten out of 40 roller coasters in a row Prigozhin formally declared victory in Bakhmut announcing that Wagner would be transferring its positions to regular Russian soldiers Images of Prigozhin visiting the Artwinery cellars and inspecting the "millions of bottles," appeared on his Telegram channel comparing Russia's victory in Bakhmut to Berlin's fall to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II One of its correspondents said he and his camera crew reported seeing "banners over the city" and "the joy of our soldiers force stood against force," a military analyst and reserve army colonel said in an interview with the Russian website KM.Ru "Russian readiness for self-sacrifice conquered Ukrainian obstinacy and furious disbelief in the fickleness of fate." Asked why it took Russia so long to take Bakhmut Lifanov made a claim that mirrored what Ukrainians had long argued: that the battle served to tie up Ukrainian soldiers and resources in one place for easy pickings "This was the Stalingrad option — to draw the enemy into the city It was no such thing to many Ukrainian soldiers who had long before resigned themselves to losing the city — but shrugged off its tactical significance Their fight relieved pressure on the front line elsewhere they said; Russia had to be held back — and Ukraine did so at a place where its forces could kill extraordinary numbers of Russians before the counteroffensive But tactically I can't see anything," Cmdr a loitering-munition commander for Ukraine's elite Adam Tactical Group from where Ukraine was gearing up with its counteroffensive Prigozhin was escalating his feud with the Kremlin's top military brass Just one month after declaring victory in Bakhmut Prigozhin spectacularly upped the ante of his monthslong feud with Shoigu and Gerasimov staging a rebellion in an apparent attempt to confront the Kremlin He died in a suspicious plane crash in August. Something breaks inside you when you kill someone, said Husach, the soldier of the 112th Territorial Defense Brigade. He was close enough to look into the faces of the Russians there. Back in Kyiv, he struggles to relate to what he sees, where people who haven't fought amble into cafés and dance in nightclubs. Some people avoid soldiers, Husach says, the all-too-visible reminders of war. "It's like you're not home anymore, and you find peace only on the front line." None of those who spoke with Business Insider said they'd been prepared for what awaited them in Bakhmut, and the physical and psychological suffering is acute. Golian, the special-forces sniper, considers himself lucky he didn't lose any limbs. But the war leaves a "deep trace" on the psyche of every Ukrainian who fights, he said. Since going to war, he no longer dreams. And waking life is somehow less vivid, too. "The things that used to make me happy no longer cheer me up," he said. "I suffer, like, indifference to them. I stopped feeling in a bright, distinct way, any positive emotions as well as any negative emotions." In the months since Prigozhin declared victory in Bakhmut, Russia's troops have made little forward progress. The battle was not decisive for either side. Ukraine launched its counteroffensive in June. Bakhmut has become one of its three main axes, but despite heavy fighting so far only small bits of territory around Bakhmut have been reclaimed. Another winter may slow what fighting continues. "Everything is destroyed," a deputy battalion commander who fought there said. "No, they don't take the city. They just destroyed the city." Jason Corcoran, Alia Shoaib, Erin Snodgrass, and Sophia Ankel contributed reporting to this story. Correction: January 8, 2024 — An earlier version of this story gave the wrong date for the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion. It was on February 24, 2022, not February 22. Before It VanishedThe world first heard of my hometown only after Russia destroyed it Save “President Joe Biden has made a statement about the situation in Bakhmut”: If anyone had said this sentence to me two years ago most Ukrainians couldn’t have found Bakhmut on a map when I tell people that I come from Bakhmut and permanently left it in February 2022 on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine They start talking to me as though we are standing at a graveside The name of my home city suffices for this I carry my town inside me and mark it on Google Maps with a heart and the word home Russia has physically erased it from the face of the Earth and made its name a byword for destruction for street battles of a ferocity hardly seen since World War II Phillips Payson O’Brien and Mykola Bielieskov: What the battle in Bakhmut has done for Ukraine I stare for hours at new photos of ruins published in local chat groups I’m looking for the city I remember: I’ve walked this street hundreds of times on my way to school; my classmate lived in that building; my dentist worked in the neighboring one I feel relief: I haven’t forgotten everything I gave tours of Bakhmut when friends visited from other cities to walk someone through a city that effectively no longer exists and tons of broken concrete that people once considered their homes or almost none: Visible in drone footage are chestnut and cherry trees that miraculously withstood the Russian onslaught and just a little more than an hour by bicycle from end to end the leaves have turned and fallen in the light wind sits on massive salt deposits that made Bakhmut a mining town for hundreds of years the scion of a Dutch family that established a salt mine called “Peter the Great” 140 years ago We walked through tall grass until we came to a ravine and a salt lake Mark’s family lived here until the beginning of the First World War and the revolution burying their dead in the local Dutch cemetery The Bolsheviks put an end to “Peter the Great,” and salt extraction soon moved to richer deposits in Soledar I’ve ventured into those industrial salt mines about a dozen times always finding new marvels: a subterranean church; intricate salt sculptures; galleries with ceilings soaring up to 30 meters where symphony orchestras have played; a grand tree festooned with garlands; a therapeutic sanatorium; even a football pitch I brought my friends to see these things—and to feel beneath our feet a seabed from 250 million years ago whose salts have seasoned the meals of every Ukrainian household Once I went with a group that included a local artist We nestled into a secluded corner of an expansive gallery under the soft glow of the lights we’d carried The salt walls reflected her towering shadow and returned echoes of her ukulele as the sound traveled through the underground caverns So engrossed were we in the moment that we lost track of our group and nearly found ourselves stranded in the mine overnight Now that enchanted space has slipped behind the front line when Russia made its earlier play for eastern Ukraine militants stormed a military base near Tsvetmet hoping to capture the 280 Ukrainian tanks there Local activists smuggled supplies and essentials over the fence to the Ukrainian soldiers The militants occupied parts of Bakhmut that spring Tsvetmet is mostly factories and private houses a much-loved recreational area had sprung up here called the Alley of Roses for the hundreds of different-colored rose varieties that bloomed from spring to late fall The park bordered on a lake where we picnicked and fed the ducks and swans I remember sitting in the hallway of my apartment building listening to the rumble of tanks on the asphalt under my window and waiting for the sound of automatic fire to subside just to make sure that the Ukrainian flag still flew over the base A Ukrainian soldier defending the post saw my look of despair and embraced me everyone was alive and everything would be okay From the June 2023 issue: The counteroffensive we felt the vibrations of Russian shells exploding on the outskirts of Bakhmut A nurse told me to take the baby to the maternity hospital’s basement: “They’re going to shell again,” she said seven frightened mothers and their infants A girl who had just given birth a few hours earlier was brought down on a stretcher calling relatives and friends to say that we were being evacuated But the rumor of renewed shelling was false You start to respond skeptically to warnings of possible shelling even when weeks go by without the sound of cannons and without new rumors that feed on your fear The Ukrainian flag flying over the tank base always comforted me Yan Dobronosov / Global Images Ukraine / GettyWhen Tymofiy was small we would take him to the local supermarket for ice cream before riding our bikes to the promenade along the Bakhmutka River The park was another new one: Before the riverbed was cleaned and its banks strengthened Now local fishermen climbed over the fence and sat by the water waiting for a catch and children gathered on playgrounds with swings and basketball courts Adults hid in the shade of young trees and took photos with green sculptures of dinosaurs a fortification against Tatar raids from Crimea appeared first The fortress of Bakhmut shows up on maps starting in 1701 a model of the fortress had pride of place I liked to look at it as a child: The houses were made of matches and you could see the river that divided the fortress in half speeches and songs in Ukrainian once again refer to Bakhmut as a fortress—a place whose function is to stop the enemy and to protect Bakhmut’s central square has the usual things: a town hall But I can’t help lingering on the empty pedestals—granite podiums of history on which no one stands constantly soiled by pigeons that left their white traces agitating against the Revolution of Dignity that had just driven Viktor Yanukovych’s Russian-backed government from Kyiv a Bolshevik revolutionary who did nothing especially beneficial for Bakhmut the town bore his name during the Soviet era Only in 2016 did Artemivsk become Bakhmut again cranes lifted the stone replicas of Artem and Lenin and transported them to an industrial zone for storage But the residents of our town couldn’t agree on who or what should replace them posed on Artem’s pedestal for a photo in 2019 I compared him to the project “Inhabiting Shadows,” by the artist Cynthia Gutierrez: She installed stairs that allowed anyone to climb the pedestal of a toppled Lenin in Kyiv one could experience the flux of historical symbols my family liked to gather for dinner on my parents’ veranda at their house not far from the city center My parents had come to Ukraine as refugees from Armenia in 1989 fleeing the Nagorno-Karabakh war to start anew in Donbas my parents working tirelessly to raise my sister and me they envisioned spending their twilight years in the modest house with the veranda Their grandson came to see them there and played in the yard Missile strikes first obliterated the roof Our family had taken nothing from the house except documents Everything my parents had built was destroyed past the landfill where the city failed to build its waste-recycling plant taking care to hand out yellow helmets in case the rock crumbled From the October 2022 issue: Ukrainians are defending values Americans claim to hold Parts are flooded and attract extreme cave divers The story of the mines begins at the end of the 19th century when a German engineer named Edmund Farke contracted with the government of Bakhmut to extract gypsum for alabaster factories His gypsum works created an extensive cave system part of which was later used to mature the local sparkling wine the gypsum caves were more of a place for mourning the Nazis used the mines to wall up 3,000 Bakhmut Jews alive People gathered there yearly to remember the victims During the Russian occupation of Bakhmut in 2023 the Wagner Group set up its headquarters in the tunnels of the winery you'll see nothing but the ruins of my city the skeletal remains of its burned-out buildings and bombarded streets nights in Kyiv punctured by air-raid sirens announcing Russian drone and missile attacks My work for the Ukrainian press brought me to Sloviansk but I could get no closer: Artillery was (and is) still booming there I offered you this tour from a fortress on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in Portugal for a retreat so that we could get some sleep—yes because it is as far away from Russia as you can get in Europe I climbed the walls of this ancient Portuguese fortress and raised my Ukrainian flag President Biden walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of a working session on Ukraine during the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima Biden supported training Ukraine's pilots to fly F-16s Here's a look ahead and a roundup of key developments from the past week The war in Ukraine will round the 15-month mark this week, with no end in sight, untold numbers of Ukrainian civilian casualties and troop fatalities on both sides, as well as ripple effects across the globe China's special envoy Li Hui continues his European tour this week as Beijing says it aims to get countries talking toward an eventual political settlement between Russia and Ukraine Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin will visit China to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping and other senior officials for more talks between the two increasingly close governments The United Nations Security Council is due to discuss protection of civilians in conflict Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued his world tour, dropping by an Arab summit in Saudi Arabia and then the Group of Seven summit in Japan Russia said it captured the city of Bakhmut, but Ukraine said the battle wasn't over. Similar back-and-forth claims have played out before over the destroyed city in eastern Ukraine in what's now considered the longest battle in a year and three months of war The Ukraine grain deal was renewed Russian security agents arrested a Russian who worked for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Russia. Robert Shonov was charged with "collaboration on a confidential basis with a foreign state." The U.S. strongly condemned the arrest Russia launched intense attacks on Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine. But Ukraine said Tuesday it managed to shoot down 18 missiles, including six hypersonic missiles China's special envoy Li Hui visited Ukraine, meeting with President Zelenskyy and senior officials. The envoy toured other European countries as well, including Poland Ukraine secured military aid, including advanced fighter jets, at the G-7 summit The G-7 is tightening up economic sanctions on Russia for its war on Ukraine Zelenskyy arrives at Arab League summit Zelenskyy's recent diplomatic moves signal a new phase for the war in Ukraine What the battle for Bakhmut tells us about the war in Ukraine On the State of Ukraine podcast: A high-profile case of corruption in Ukraine. And, Should Ukraine try to take back Crimea? The Ukraine grain deal is extended 2 months, helping ease the global food crisis There are signs Ukraine's spring counteroffensive may have already started Russia attacked the hometown of Ukraine's Eurovision band just before its performance On Here and Now: Ukraine's Patriot air defense system likely damaged by Russian airstrike Russia's war in Ukraine is changing the world: See our report on its ripple effects in all corners of the globe. You can read past recaps here. For context and more in-depth stories, you can find more of NPR's coverage here. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR's State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day Become an NPR sponsor a spokesperson for Ukraine's eastern military command said the number of Russian attacks in the area had fallen in the last three days and that there had been two military engagements in the last 24 hours though shelling continued."We can definitely note a reduction in attacks and possibly this is linked to their regrouping It is clear that we have inflicted heavy losses and they need this (to regroup)," he said.Maliar said Russia was also reinforcing its positions on the flanks of Bakhmut and shelling Ukrainian forces to try to stop Ukrainian advances to the north and south of the city.Prigozhin announced the capture of Bakhmut last week after the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.Reporting by Max Hunder; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Timothy Heritage Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Writing by Tom Balmforth and Ron Popeski; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Richard Chang FILE - In this grab taken from video and released by Prigozhin Press Service Saturday, May 20, 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group military company speaks holding a Russian national flag in front of his soldiers in Bakhmut, Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday, May 21, 2023 that Russian forces weren’t occupying Bakhmut, casting doubt on Moscow’s insistence that the eastern Ukrainian city had fallen. (Prigozhin Press Service via AP, File) “Despite the fact that we now control a small part of Bakhmut, the importance of its defense does not lose its relevance,” said Col.-Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Commander of Ground Forces for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. “This gives us the opportunity to enter the city in case of a change in the situation. And it will definitely happen.” About 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk, Bakhmut was an important industrial center, surrounded by salt and gypsum mines and home to about 80,000 people before the war, in a country of more than 43 million. The city, named Artyomovsk after a Bolshevik revolutionary when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, was known for its sparkling wine produced in underground caves. It was popular among tourists for its broad tree-lined avenues, lush parks and stately downtown with imposing late 19th century mansions. All are now reduced to a smoldering wasteland. Fought over so fiercely by Russia and Ukraine in recent months has been the urban center itself, where Ukrainian commanders have conceded that Moscow controlled more than 90%. But even now, Ukrainian forces are making significant advances near strategic roads through the countryside just outside, chipping away at Russia’s northern and southern flanks by the meter (yard) with the aim of encircling Wagner fighters inside the city. “The enemy failed to surround Bakhmut. They lost part of the heights around the city. The continuing advance of our troops in the suburbs greatly complicates the enemy’s presence,” said Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister. “Our troops have taken the city in a semi-encirclement, which gives us the opportunity to destroy the enemy.” Ukrainian military leaders say their months-long resistance has been worth it because it limited Russia’s capabilities elsewhere and allowed for Ukrainian advances. “The main idea is to exhaust them, then to attack,” Ukrainian Col. Yevhen Mezhevikin, commander of a specialized group fighting in Bakhmut, said Thursday. Russia has deployed reinforcements to Bakhmut to replenish lost northern and southern flanks and prevent more Ukrainian breakthroughs, according to Ukrainian officials and other outside observers. Russian President Vladimir Putin badly needs to claim victory in Bakhmut city, where Russian forces have focused their efforts, analysts say, especially after a winter offensive by his forces failed to capture other cities and towns along the front. Some analysts said that even Ukraine’s tactical gains in the rural area outside urban Bakhmut could be more significant than they seem. “It was almost like the Ukrainians just took advantage of the fact that, actually, the Russian lines were weak,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews. “The Russian army has suffered such high losses and is so worn out around Bakhmut that ... it cannot go forward anymore.” Ukrainian forces in the outskirts of Bakhmut and in the city bore relentless artillery attacks until a month ago. Then, Ukrainian forces positioned south of the city spotted their chance for a breakthrough after reconnaissance drones showed the southern Russian flank had gone on the defensive, Col. Mezhevikin said. After fierce fighting for weeks, Ukrainian units had made their first advance in the vicinity of Bakhmut since it was invaded nine months ago. In all, nearly 20 square kilometers (eight square miles) of territory were recaptured, Maliar said in an interview last week. Hundreds of meters (yards) more have been regained almost every day since, according to Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesman for Ukraine’s Operational Command East. “Previously we were only holding the lines and didn’t let Russians advance further into our territory. What has happened now is our first advance (since the battle started),” Maliar said. Satellite imagery released this week shows infrastructure, apartment blocks and iconic buildings reduced to rubble. In the last week, days before Russia announced that the city had fallen into their control, Ukrainian forces retained only a handful of buildings amid constant Russian bombardment. Outnumbered and outgunned, they described nightmarish days. Russia’s artillery dominance is so overwhelming, accompanied by continuous human waves of mercenaries, that defensive positions could not be held for long. “The importance of our mission of staying in Bakhmut lies in distracting a significant enemy force,” said Taras Deiak, a commander of a special unit of a volunteer battalion. “We are paying a high price for this.” The northern and southern flanks regained by Ukraine are located near two highways that lead to Chasiv Yar, a town 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Bakhmut that serves as a key logistics supply route, one dubbed the “road of life.” Ukrainian forces passing this road often came under fire from Russians positioned along nearby strategic heights. Armored vehicles and pickup trucks driving toward the city to replenish Ukrainian troops were frequently destroyed. With the high plains now under Ukrainian control, its forces have more breathing room. “This will help us design new logistic chains to deliver ammunition in and evacuate the injured or killed boys,” said Deiak, speaking from inside the city on Thursday, two days before Russia claimed it controlled the city. “Now it is easier to deliver supplies, rotate troops, (carry out) evacuations.” Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report. David Ljunggren and Ron Popeski; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Jamie Freed .css-105lg8x{display:grid;grid-auto-flow:row;grid-column-gap:var(--mb-responsive-grid-gutter);grid-row-gap:3rem;grid-auto-columns:1fr;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;max-width:89.5rem;overflow:hidden;position:relative;}@media (min-width: 22.5rem){.css-105lg8x{grid-template:auto/repeat(6 1fr));}}@media (min-width: 52.125rem){.css-105lg8x{grid-template:auto/repeat(9 1fr));}}@media (min-width: 89rem){.css-105lg8x{grid-template:auto/repeat(12 1fr));}}@media (min-width: 52.125rem){.css-1uuz26i{grid-template:auto/repeat(9 1fr));}}@media (min-width: 89rem){.css-1uuz26i{grid-template:auto/repeat(12 Their faces have changed. For nearly a year I have been photographing the Azov regiment, whose soldiers are among those currently fighting to hold the city of Bakhmut The unit grew out of a volunteer militia that was established when Russia invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014 though it’s been reconstituted since then and brought under the control of the Ministry of Defence Ousting Assad may turn out to have been easier than rebuilding the country A lawyer struggles with their conscience. New colleagues are watching In the Central African Republic locals are learning Russian while mercenaries knock back lager The Inuit on Little Diomede are watched over by Russian soldiers. But that’s not their biggest problem in these icy badlands People save icons as they clear rubble after a Russian rocket ruined an Orthodox church in an Easter attack China's defense minister, Gen. Li Shangfu, is visiting Russia this week and hailing the countries' military cooperation Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced in Moscow to 25 years in prison for his criticism of Russia's war in Ukraine on Monday. Washington and London are demanding his release, as his legal team prepares to appeal the decision the Wall Street Journal reporter jailed in Russia Family and followers of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny are awaiting updates on his condition after his associates sounded the alarm last week about his health Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is on a Latin America tour, visiting Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. Next week, he goes to New York to chair debates at the U.N where Russia holds the rotating presidency Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin is in Washington this week, discussing aid oversight and war crimes investigations The European Union is expected to discuss recent unilateral actions by Hungary Poland and Slovakia to ban grain imports from Ukraine Russia toughened up its military draft rules banning conscripts from leaving the country and increasing penalties for draftees who fail to report for service The battle for Bakhmut heated up again, as Russian troops and Wagner Group mercenaries ramped up their assault on the eastern Ukrainian town, according to British Defense Ministry intelligence It said Ukraine's defenses held in the town's western districts but Ukrainian troops made orderly withdrawals from some positions they conceded Russia also bombed the eastern Ukrainian town of Sloviansk hitting a residential area and killing over a dozen civilians And in the Russian border city of Belgorod a thermal power plant caught fire in an apparent drone attack Ukraine celebrated Orthodox Easter for the second time since Russia launched its large-scale invasion last year. On this occasion, Ukrainians also celebrated a "big Easter POW swap," a presidential adviser said noting 130 Ukrainian soldiers were released Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited China, issuing a joint statement with Chinese leader Xi Jinping saying they seek a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine. Lula sent his foreign adviser to Russia earlier this month to speak with Putin about the potential for talks Now Russia's foreign minister will visit Brasília A graphic video purportedly showing the decapitation of Ukrainian soldiers circulated on social media, drawing strong condemnation from Ukrainian leaders and the United Nations human rights mission in Ukraine Hungary, Poland and Slovakia banned grain imports from Ukraine, citing the need to protect their farms from an influx of supply that lowers prices Brittney Griner is working on a memoir about her prison time in Russia Since the basketball player's release from a Russian penal colony and return home in December she has also signed to play the next season with the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury Putin signs a tough new military draft law, banning conscripts from fleeing Russia How the war in Ukraine has forever changed the children in one kindergarten class The religious battle at a Kyiv monastery Russia's foreign minister visits Brazil on a swing through Latin America War separates two best friends from Ukraine On The NPR Politics Podcast: Leaked docs reveal Ukraine's vulnerabilities, and U.S. intel on allies How will the Ukraine document investigation work? A former DOJ "leak czar" explains Ukraine military says U.S. leak shows it needs more ammunition In New York, a nonprofit helps Ukrainian refugees make a home Landmines in Ukraine crop fields put farmers' lives at risk Hostage envoy says the U.S. can bring home two Americans detained in Russia The EU wants to sanction diamonds from Russia Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Jamie Freed We both visited the Kaunas Ninth Fort Museum for the opening of the exhibition “BakhmutBakhmut it aims to draw parallels between the tragedy of the Holocaust were murdered in Bakhmut (Artemovsk) in 1942 and the Russian destruction of the city between 2022 and 2023 “This exhibition reveals the history of two genocides but both perpetrated by repressive regimes: Nazi Germany and modern Russia,” reads the annotation Mariia Mizina (Babin Yar National Historical and Memorial Reserve) not only included works by Ukrainian artists and photojournalists and some historical material but also C von Wedemeyer’s video Bakhmut 2023 (11 min.) which juxtaposes the images of the same city taken by his grandfather and by the artist as well as more recent documentary material. could you tell me about the prehistory of this work Have you always known about the footage that your grandfather filmed in Artemovsk I had access to the archive of these films made during the war in France My mother gave the material to the Federal Archives of Germany and showed the films to historians who came to our house I remember that I saw them at a very early age and that it also made some impression on me because it was 16mm and this old technology but it took a long time until… I knew I wanted to do something with this material but needed time to deal with it It takes time to mature as an artist and be able to work with such sensitive material The material was first conceived for an exhibition in Berlin There are seven different ways of dealing with the material: essays and a reconstruction of the scene in a 3D computer game environment I think I needed some time to develop a non-ideological approach to film history which I also used in some other works. What was your reaction when you were invited to Bakhmut Or were you looking for ways to go to the city and see what your grandfather saw in a different light I didn’t want to go because I didn’t want to go in the footsteps of my grandfather and kind of follow the traces of crimes somehow with the invitation of a Ukrainian artist and curator I felt like I was in a very good environment and decided to show this material directly in Bakhmut I also learned they already knew about this material and held an exhibition about the German occupation some years ago some of my fears or my preconceptions were misleading It was a chance for me to also go to Ukraine for the first time because Ukraine was not on the map in Germany for many years And this is kind of a symptom of many people that didn’t care so much about Ukraine or other countries The situation in Bakhmut today is very different from what you filmed the material became of archival importance Did you have this archival layer in mind when you were shooting this material but I still needed to decide whether I wanted to film anything in Bakhmut I would try to look for the angles or places where the films had been shot but I didn’t have a specific project in mind because the project was already kind of closed Many people who spoke in today’s opening mentioned retrospectives and the repetitiveness of anger or evil What do you think is the role of artists and historians in this cycle I believe in cultural exchange and in preserving memory Looking at memory gives a better understanding I think it’s necessary to rework images and to keep archives alive but I think one needs to have a tool to understand the present at least a bit more. You mentioned that you wanted to somehow remove the ideological layer from video material as we have the parliament election in a few months Is there space for politics in such exhibitions? That’s a problematic question and a problematic issue because I think it’s not so helpful to politicize everything this is an exception for me to put a work into a political show because I think it’s a historical political show That’s also a political step to get out of daily politics and ideologies and to make things more complicated You have been a significant artist for quite some time now How has working with material from Bakhmut influenced you daily images or things that happen around me I just felt the necessity of working on these images also by a Ukrainian exhibition in Berlin in the beginning I wouldn’t have looked at the images again so fast Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near two key front line cities Moscow’s troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the war’s bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May the head of Ukraine’s ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances west north and south of the city since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions … Enemy attacks are being repelled,” Col Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Sunday that Russian forces over the previous day repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Klischiivka and Kurdyumivka two small settlements lying south of Bakhmut Igor Konashenkov made the claim at the latest of regular press briefings Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south Moscow’s forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops Ukraine is able to send to key southern and eastern battles READ MORE: Civilians suffer casualties as Russia renews push to take eastern Ukrainian towns Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russian troops were also continuing their weekslong push to encircle Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. It’s considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyiv’s control. The General Staff said Russia’s air force was playing a key part in the latest assault. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said Sunday that the attacking Russian forces were ramping up airstrikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops had launched 30 airstrikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas over the previous day, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units. Also on Sunday, Ukraine’s intelligence agency claimed responsibility for a powerful blast in the country’s occupied south the day before that they said killed “at least three” officers serving with Russia’s internal military force. In an online statement, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense called the explosion, which rocked the headquarters of the Russian occupation authorities in the city of Melitopol on Saturday, “an act of revenge (…) carried out by representatives of the local resistance movement.” “At least three officers of the Russian (National) Guard were eliminated,” the statement said, referring to Russia’s internal military agency that reports directly to the Kremlin. It added that the strike was carried out “during a meeting of the occupiers” attended by National Guard officers as well as operatives from Russia’s main security agency, the FSB. Melitopol, a city in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region that had a pre-war population of over 150,000, was captured by Russian troops just days into the war. It now lies well behind its southern front line, even as a Ukrainian counteroffensive continues to grind on in Zaporizhzhia. Russian authorities did not immediately respond to the Ukrainian claims, which could not be independently verified. The announcement came just over a day after more than a dozen freight cars carrying cargo in Russia’s western Ryazan region were derailed by an improvised explosive device, according to Russian law enforcement. Nineteen carriages traveling from the town of Rybnoye were thrown from the tracks and 15 were damaged, investigators wrote in a statement on social media. They said they would be opening a criminal investigation on terrorism charges. A regional branch of Ukraine’s public broadcaster, Suspilne, on Saturday cited anonymous sources from Ukraine’s GUR as claiming that the intelligence agency was behind the blast. A spokesman for the GUR, Andriy Yusov, that same day refused to confirm or deny the agency’s involvement, but said that similar strikes within Russia “will continue.” Yusov made the remarks in an interview with the Ukrainian armed forces’ official news service, ArmyInform. Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the country’s railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage. In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, a 64-year-old man was killed when Russian shells slammed into his yard, Ukrainian regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said. Prokudin added that the man’s wife was hospitalized with a skull injury, concussion and shrapnel wounds to her legs. Prokudin said that Russian forces shelled Kherson and the surrounding region 62 times over the previous 24 hours, wounding four civilians and damaging one of the city’s libraries. The city has come under near-daily attacks since Ukraine recaptured it a year ago. Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm. © 1996 - 2025 NewsHour Productions LLC. All Rights Reserved. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. Subscribe to Here's the Deal with Lisa Desjardins 20234:43 AM UTCBattle for Bakhmut: Scenes from the front linesBakhmut a small eastern city that has for months been the target of a Russian offensive has seen intense fighting and destruction in what has become the longest [1/70]An aerial view shows destruction in the frontline town of Bakhmut via 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed ForcesBAKHMUT [3/70]A Ukrainian service member looks at the body of a killed Russian soldier lying at a position after a fight Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Serhii NuzhnenkoDONETSK REGION [5/70]A Ukrainian serviceman stands in a truck with rockets for a BM-21 Grad multiple launch system Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Serhii NuzhnenkoBAKHMUT [6/70]A Ukrainian serviceman checks Russian positions after a fight Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Serhii NuzhnenkoDONETSK REGION Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Serhii NuzhnenkoDONETSK REGION [8/70]Ukrainian servicemen fire a BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system towards Russian troops Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Serhii NuzhnenkoBAKHMUT [9/70]A body of a killed Russian soldier lies at a position after a fight [10/70]Ukrainian service members from a 28th separate mechanised brigade named after the Knights of the Winter Campaign of the Armed Forces of Ukraine fire a mortar at their positions at a front line near the city of Bakhmut [11/70]Ukrainian servicemen rest at their positions after a fight [12/70]Ukrainian servicemen check Russian positions after a fight [13/70]A Ukrainian serviceman checks Russian positions after a fight [14/70]A Ukrainian serviceman rests at his position after a fight [15/70]A cap is seen at a Russian position after a fight Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Serhii NuzhnenkoDONETSK REGION [16/70]Ukrainian servicemen rest at their positions after a fight [18/70]A Ukrainian service member from a 3rd separate assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine fires a howitzer D30 at a front line near the city of Bakhmut [19/70]A Ukrainian service member walks near damaged residential buildings in the frontline town of Bakhmut [20/70]A Ukrainian serviceman looks on as he returns from heavy fighting close to Bakhmut More in this CollectionSee all picturesItem 21 of 70 A view shows damaged residential buildings in the frontline town of Bakhmut REUTERS/Anna Kudriavtseva[21/70]A view shows damaged residential buildings in the frontline town of Bakhmut REUTERS/Anna KudriavtsevaShare this gallery © 2025 Reuters. All rights reserved Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a news conference at the Group of Seven nations’ summit in Hiroshima, western Japan, Sunday, May 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, Pool) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, rides a car after laying flowers in front of the Cenotaph for the Victims of the Atomic Bomb at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park after he was invited to the Group of Seven (G7) nations’ summit in Hiroshima, western Japan Sunday, May 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool) In this photo released by the Press and Media Bureau of the Indonesian Presidential Palace, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, second right, talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, third left, during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Sunday, May 21, 2023. (Laily Rachev/Indonesian Presidential Palace via AP) In this photo released by the Press and Media Bureau of the Indonesian Presidential Palace, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, left, shakes hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Sunday, May 21, 2023. (Laily Rachev/Indonesian Presidential Palace via AP) HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russian forces weren’t occupying Bakhmut, casting doubt on Moscow’s insistence that the eastern Ukrainian city had fallen. Responding to a reporter’s question about the status of the city at the Group of Seven summit in Japan, Zelenskyy said: “Bakhmut is not occupied by the Russian Federation as of today.” “We are not throwing people (away) to die,” Zelenskyy said in Ukrainian through an interpreter. “People are the treasure. I clearly understand what is happening in Bakhmut. I cannot share with you the technical details of what is happening with our warriors.” “The fight for the city of Bakhmut is continuing,” the Ukrainian military’s general staff said in a statement on Sunday evening. Oleksandr Syrskyi, a spokesman for the military’s eastern command, said Ukrainian forces control the outskirts of the city, and “defense forces continue offensive actions on the flanks near Bakhmut.” The fog of war made it impossible to confirm the situation on the ground in the invasion’s longest battle, and a series of comments from Ukrainian and Russian officials added confusion to the matter. Zelenskyy’s response in English to a question earlier at the summit about the status of Bakhmut suggested that he believed the city had fallen to Russian forces, and he offered solemn words about its fate. When asked if the city was in Ukraine’s hands, Zelenskyy said: “I think no, but you have to — to understand that there is nothing, They’ve destroyed everything. There are no buildings. It’s a pity. It’s tragedy.” “But, for today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts. There is nothing on this place, so — just ground and — and a lot of dead Russians,” he said. Zelenskyy’s press secretary later walked back those previous comments. Ukrainian defense and military officials said that fierce fighting was ongoing. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar even went so far as to say that Ukrainian troops “took the city in a semi-encirclement.” “The enemy failed to surround Bakhmut, and they lost part of the dominant heights around the city,” Malyar said. “That is, the advance of our troops in the suburbs along the flanks, which is still ongoing, greatly complicates the enemy’s presence in Bakhmut.” And the spokesman for Ukraine’s Eastern Group of Forces, Serhii Cherevaty, said that the Ukrainian military is managing to hold positions in the vicinity of Bakhmut. “The president correctly said that the city has, in fact, been razed to the ground. The enemy is being destroyed every day by massive artillery and aviation strikes, and our units report that the situation is extremely difficult. Our military keep fortifications and several premises in the southwestern part of the city. Heavy fighting is underway,” he said. It was only the latest flip-flopping of the situation in Bakhmut after eight months of intense fighting. Only hours earlier, Russian state new agencies reported that President Vladimir Putin congratulated “Wagner assault detachments, as well as all servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces units, who provided them with the necessary support and flank protection, on the completion of the operation to liberate Artyomovsk,” which is Bakhmut’s Soviet-era name. Russia’s Defense Ministry also said that Wagner and military units “completed the liberation” of Bakhmut. At the G-7 in Japan, Zelenskyy stood side by side with U.S. President Joe Biden during a news conference. Biden announced $375 million more in aid for Ukraine, which included more ammunition, artillery and vehicles. The new pledge came after the U.S. agreed to allow training on American-made F-16 fighter jets, laying the groundwork for their eventual transfer to Ukraine. Biden said Sunday that Zelenskyy had given the U.S. a “flat assurance” that Ukraine wouldn’t use the F-16s jets to attack Russian territory. Many analysts say that even if Russia was victorious in Bakhmut, it was unlikely to turn the tide in the war. In a video posted on Telegram, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said the city came under complete Russian control at about midday Saturday. He spoke surrounded by about a half-dozen fighters, with ruined buildings in the background and explosions heard in the distance. Russian forces still seek to seize the remaining part of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control, including several heavily fortified areas. Analysts have said Bakhmut’s fall would be a blow to Ukraine and give tactical advantages to Russia but wouldn’t prove decisive to the outcome of the war. Elise Morton reported from London, and Susie Blann from Kyiv, Ukraine. Elaine Kurtenbach and Adam Schreck contributed to this report from Hiroshima. Reports indicate that after months of fighting, the Russians have taken the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut This comes at a time when world leaders are pledging more aid and weapons — including sophisticated American-made F-16s — to Ukraine in hopes that its armed forces will be able to mount a much anticipated counteroffensive this spring I asked the two top Russia experts at the Quincy Institute — Anatol Lieven and George Beebe — for their candid takes on what this apparent victory for Russia really means and how it might change the war’s landscape Additionally, what might we read into the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine and does it risk escalation into a broader NATO-Russia conflict Where does that leave those who would like to move away from fighting and to a ceasefire so reports today say that after many months the Russians have taken over the city of Bakhmut What does this mean tactically and strategically for both sides I think the real question of the significance of this victory is not going to be apparent for quite some time I think a lot of military experts have argued that Bakhmut in and of itself is not strategically important that it's not likely to lead to some breakthrough for the Russians or an ability to break Ukraine's defenses all together I don't think that's going to happen The bigger question is whether Ukraine's decision to basically mount an all-out defense of Bakhmut despite its lack of strategic significance is going to result in crippling its ability to mount a new counteroffensive elsewhere in Ukraine something that they've long planned and long been talking publicly about And I think a lot of Western military experts have long been urging the Ukrainians simply to mount an orderly withdrawal from Bakhmut to preserve their men and munitions for use in more important battles in the future But Zelensky essentially overruled that advice and decided that they were going to send more troops — including some of Ukraine's best troops — to try to keep Bakhmut He made quite a theatrical display of this You recall when he came to Washington last December he came carrying a flag from Bakhmut taken from the defenders there which he quite ceremonially gifted to the U.S Congress as a symbol of Ukraine's determination to hold the city and beat back Russia's forces Now it's clear that everything that they put into defending it ended up being wasted and what the larger implications are for Ukraine's ability to push Russia back in remains to be seen but my guess is that there are a lot of heads that are shaking in Washington today wondering what Zelensky was thinking What I would add is we can't be sure how much damage has been done to the Russian Armed Forces through this long They have certainly suffered heavily as well I suppose the one key question is quite unrelated to the fighting itself It's what this will do for the prestige of (Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin) and the Wagner Group Will this really strengthen his hand in Russian internal politics it's very amusing this phrase from Wagner that they are going to hand over Bakhmut to the Russian army And as a very gracious and generous gesture [it] will pour coals on the fire of anger in the Russian Defense Ministry at Prigozhin and I don't believe that this is something that he has done before So he's giving them some public credit in all of this and I think he's trying to walk a very fine line between using Wagner and Prigozhin for Russia's broader national purposes while not at the same time creating a potential political rival or somebody the man in the white horse whose political influence could get out of control So he's trying to strike a balance there and it's not clear how that's gonna play out either Kelley: So all of this comes at a time when the United States has paved the way for the transfer of advanced fighters and the G7 leadership just committed more aid and weapons to Ukraine Do you perceive there being more NATO involvement now to reverse what appears to be a Russian victory Does this open the way for more escalation that is NATO's and America's intention most of the expectation has been that they will attack towards the Sea of Azov in an effort to cut the Russian position in two they've given the Russians lots and lots and lots of time to prepare And satellite images show several lines of Russian defense if (Ukraine) tried to counterattack again in the Donbass they could simply enmesh themselves in yet another battle of attrition with no breakthrough at all NATO is trying to strengthen the Ukrainians the Russians can hold the Ukrainians and they don't break through then there won't be so much of an incentive for Russia to escalate then I think there is every chance that Russia will escalate We are in an escalation dynamic with the Russians Every Russian advance or escalatory step is matched on the West’s part and vice-versa I think one of the things about the F-16 transfer and it's still not clear exactly how many of these planes the Ukrainians are ready to get and how quickly they're going to come but they're difficult planes to operate for the Ukrainians without extensive Western support They require enormous amounts of maintenance and they require long and relatively well maintained runways So they are either going to have to upgrade existing runways in Ukraine in order to accommodate these aircraft or they're gonna have to fly them out of NATO country air bases either one of those is problematic because if they upgrade the runways So they will essentially be signaling to the Russians where they ought to be attacking in order to cripple Ukraine's ability to fly these aircraft then the Russians are going to have a real decision to make as to whether they strike at the bases from which these aircraft are flying They're going to have to be shipping these things back and forth to NATO countries for maintenance or the West is going to have to put Western maintenance crews in Ukraine to do the maintenance there an act that is fraught with escalatory potential The other thing I would say is my guess — I have no evidentiary basis for this judgment but it's just a strong suspicion — (that) the more the Ukrainians run out of air defense missiles the greater the pressure has grown in the West to provide Ukraine with F-16’s We just don't have the missiles to supply them And the only way we can make sure that the Ukrainians are are not defenseless against Russian air attacks is to provide this kind of fighter aircraft support there So I think this is actually a bad sign about the West's assessment of the state of Ukrainian air defenses are we any closer to talking about a ceasefire or are we much further away from it today as we were say after the news of the F-16s and the fall of Bakhmut to the Russians What is your confidence level that there actually could be some diplomacy in the near future Anatol: Well, I mean, the G7 statement went out of its way to demand total Russian withdrawal Now it didn't say specifically from all Ukrainian territory since 2014 But certainly that was not an encouraging sign for any kind of compromise we will have to simply see what happens on the battlefield Because we've heard repeatedly suggestions in recent weeks and months that if Ukraine fails to win a major victory this year then present levels of aid cannot be sustained George was absolutely right when it comes to our inability to provide anti aircraft missiles and developments on the battlefield will be the decisive factor — or the lack of developments on the battlefield George: I think that at this point, the sides are very far apart. And neither Ukraine nor Russia is inclined to compromise. And the G7 statement and the decision in Washington to provide the F-16s do not encourage me to believe that the United States is anywhere close to trying to find a compromise way out of this. The one encouraging thing on peace is that the other parts of the world — China the Holy See — apparently are more intent than ever on trying to find a way out of this Today, there are only three global naval powers: the United States, China, and Russia able occasionally to deploy further afield If Donald Trump wants European states to look after their own collective security Britain might be better off keeping its handful of ships in the Atlantic although still able to inflict severe damage on Ukraine few people talk about the real Russian naval capacity to challenge Western dominance how this will increasingly come up against U.S That is an incredible message to our adversaries It is an incredible show of unity to our allies and our commitment to NATO.” almost half of Britain’s fighting ships embarked from Portsmouth and Devonport to much fanfare “the world’s most advanced air defense destroyer,” has been in the dry dock since 2017 I’ve just finished reading “The Royal and Russian Navies, Cooperation, Competition and Confrontation,”written by Britain’s former Naval Attache to Moscow retired Principal Lecturer at the Defence Centre for Languages & Culture at the UK’s Defence Academy The authors argue that while we have focused most of our attention on Russia’s army in Ukraine And thinking about Russia as a relic of its Cold War self is a huge mistake laboring under sanctions and the tight fiscal constraints of the war in Ukraine Russia’s naval yards have built new vessels non-stop for the past decade Russia has taken delivery of 27 submarines Many more are under construction and will arrive by the end of this decade The Royal Navy, on the other hand, has continued to shrink in the teeth of defense cuts, and each new efficiency drive makes it smaller. The two Albion-class landing vessels and negotiations about their sale to Brazil are at an advanced stage The increase in defense spending to 2.5% of GDP will mostly be swallowed by the MoD’s bloated procurement programs that are typically delayed and always over budget It will not produce a rapid conveyor belt of ship-building that has seen Russia overtake Britain at a rapid pace since the Ukraine crisis started The book also underlines the importance of dialogue as a key component of deterrence and reminds the reader of the significant naval cooperation that took place between the two navies after the Cold War When HMS Battleaxe sailed into Baltiysk in 1992 the first Royal Navy ship visit to modern-day Russia it discovered the remnants of the Soviet Navy The Russian Navy had become the main beneficiary of Russia’s state armament program and a Russian admiral was saying the UK’s decision to give up the Nimrod Maritime Patrol Aircraft in 2010 made his “life easier.” practically all direct engagement between the Royal and Russian navies was cut at the instigation of the UK government the UK and Russia have no serving military attachés in their respective embassies in London and Moscow for the first time since 1941 Our modern generation of seafarers are now only able to view Russians through binoculars Britain has literally watched a modernizing Russian navy sail off into a distant horizon as we’ve criticized Russia from an ivory conning tower From his ridiculous photo op on the deck of HMS The Prince of Wales, it’s not clear that Keir Starmer has understood that the world now contains just three global naval powers: the United States of America Russian naval ambitions have now grown in the High North (Arctic) and in the Pacific While Britain’s modest Carrier Strike Group steams east, Russia has already been active in joint naval exercises with China and Iran as well as ship visits to Myanmar and other locations Britain has practically no scope to control Russia’s increasingly assertive naval posture in Asia This decade-long lack of engagement — not just by Britain but by America pre-Trump — has left us sailing blind on how Russian doctrine and tactics have shifted in the forge of war in Ukraine It's clear to me that in this new world order of military burden sharing between America and Europe Britain would be better placed keeping its handful of ships in the Atlantic while America increasingly comes into contact with the Russian Navy in the Pacific In President Donald Trump’s first 100 days his administration has arrested and detained visa holders and other non-citizens in the U.S for speaking out against Israel’s military actions in Gaza That’s not how the administration frames it but that is the connective tissue in each of the cases “We’re either a free society governed by the Constitution Paul was specifically addressing the Antisemitism Awareness Act which would codify a Trump-era executive order declaring that antisemitism is a prohibited form of discrimination in schools and universities and would use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in assessing cases of antisemitic discrimination through the Department of Education Critics say that it would allow the government to conflate criticism of Zionism and the Israeli government with antisemitism and serve as a dangerous tool to shut down free speech Paul wondered aloud if campus police would be used in enforcing new speech rules As The Jewish Chronicle reported after the vote was postponed Paul was part of “a testy hearing on Wednesday that covered objections to the bill ranging from whether a Christian would be barred from saying that Jews killed Jesus to the acceptability of making contemporary political allusions to Nazi Germany and even the comedy of Jerry Seinfeld and Joan Rivers.” Paul cited the landmark 1969 Brandenburg v. Ohio case in which Ku Klux Klan member Clarence Brandenburg was convicted under two Ohio laws of allegedly inciting violence against Jews and African-Americans with his speech Brandenburg claimed that his punishment violated the First Amendment “Brandenburg was a Nazi and an antisemite and he said horrible things,” Paul said the Supreme Court ruled that you can say terrible things.” The senator compared the American concept of free speech with Europe’s recent crackdowns on speech “That’s unique about our country,” Paul said. “In Europe if you call a boy who thinks he’s a girl a boy If you say something about the Holocaust in Europe Do we want to replicate Europe’s speech laws in the U.S. “We’re codifying what Europe did to speech The Congressional debate is taking place as non-citizen students have been snatched away ostensibly for what they said or wrote about Israel the former co-president of Columbia University’s Palestinian Student Union of using “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” against Jewish students during a protest on campus in 2024 A 34-year-old permanent resident of the U.S who was born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank before moving to the U.S Mahdawi was detained by ICE agents while at his naturalization hearing in Vermont on April 14 He was never formally charged with a crime We don't know if the other non-citizen students detained by immigration authorities in the last month have actually been involved in threats or intimidation because the administration has been deliberately vague about its reasons for detaining them Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the administration has the right to deport non-citizens when their "presence and activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S He is invoking a little-used clause in the Immigration and Nationality Act which stipulates that the Secretary of State can determine what kind of activity rises to the level of having “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the country Others are still in detention awaiting hearings Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil claims he was arrested on March 8 for a speech he gave during campus protests, though he too was never charged with anything. A judge has said the administration’s attempt to deport him will be decided in court He has been accused by Department of Homeland Security officials of spreading Hamas propaganda something his family and supporters vehemently deny the detainees’ support for the Palestinians’ plight and criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza appear to be the primary reasons behind their arrests But if America did ignore the First Amendment and allowed rigid UK-style speech laws instead Do the purveyors of the new antisemitism speech legislation on Capitol Hill know that this could boomerang on them when their ideological opponents someday get back into power As journalist Glenn Greenwald observed about the antisemitism legislation “this is not a hate speech code applying to foreign nationals It's a hate speech code that applies to American citizens where people can be punished for the expression of ideas on college campuses cheered for by the right wing faction that has long claimed there's nothing worse than hate speech codes and other forms of suppression of ideas on college campuses.” Carving out one country in the world and making it forbidden to criticize its government is the complete antithesis of the Constitution’s protections and a betrayal of the American tradition The First Amendment allows anyone on American soil to critique the U.S but now condemning a foreign government could land you in jail or deported to another country One would think that putting America first might include putting its First Amendment first The U.S.-Ukraine minerals agreement is not a diplomatic breakthrough and will not end the war but it is a significant success for Ukraine both in the short term and — if it is ever in fact implemented — in the longer term It reportedly does not get Ukraine the security “guarantees” that Kyiv has been asking for. It does not commit the U.S. to fight for Ukraine, or to back up a European “reassurance force” for Ukraine. And NATO membership remains off the table. Given its basic positions, there is no chance of the Trump administration shifting on these points But since the Ukraine peace process appeared to run out of steam and Trump threatened to “walk away” from the talks Kyiv and Moscow have been engaged in an elaborate diplomatic dance of semi-proposals and hints to try to ensure that if Trump does walk away he will blame the other side for the talks’ failure This agreement makes it far more likely that he will blame Russia, and therefore that he will continue military and intelligence aid to Ukraine. He may also, as threatened, try to impose additional sanctions on Russia — though given the resistance of most of the world to these sanctions, and tensions over tariffs between the U.S. and Europe it is not at all clear how effective new sanctions would be military and intelligence aid will not win the war for Ukraine nor allow it to drive the Russians from occupied territory It will however help the Ukrainian army to slow down Russia’s advance on the ground and impose heavy casualties on the Russian army This should not be taken by the Ukrainians or their European supporters as an excuse to maintain impossible conditions for peace that will make a settlement impossible; because the military and economic odds are still strongly against Ukraine and a collapse of Ukraine’s exhausted troops is a real possibility it will make it more likely that Russia will abandon or heavily qualify its impossible demands for example for Ukrainian disarmament and withdrawal from additional territory it is clearly far more favorable for Ukraine than Trump’s original — and grotesque — proposal that Ukraine should essentially hand its entire reserves of minerals to the U.S the profits of mineral extraction will be equally shared As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: “This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free … President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.” money go to develop mineral extraction in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging." absolute Western security guarantees for Ukraine after a peace settlement have never really been on offer because the Biden administration and almost every other NATO government stated repeatedly that they would not fight to defend Ukraine will however ensure a strong continued U.S It greatly reduces the risk that in the event of future Russian aggression would simply look away and not respond as it has in this war with military supplies and extreme sanctions But the deal won’t be implemented until the war comes to an end. Thereafter, it will depend on the willingness of U.S private companies to invest in this sector — and that will depend on their assessment of both the risks and the profits involved For it is vital to note that this agreement does not commit the U.S government to invest in Ukraine; and to judge by the present profitability of minerals extraction in the world it is not certain that private investors will see major benefits from doing so China has developed its rare-earth sector on such a scale mainly through huge state-directed investment; and no-one has so far done a thorough analysis of the actual profitability and scale of most of these Ukrainian resources. So, only a tactical success for Ukraine and one over which there hang many questions; but nonetheless one that hopefully will lead Moscow to respond with some serious and acceptable peace proposals of its own. About Us Privacy Policy PitchRS@quincyinst.org©2025 Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ©2025 Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy. Reporting by Max Hunder; Editing by Angus MacSwan Ukraine (AP) — Watching imagery from a drone camera overhead Ukrainian battalion commander Oleg Shiryaev warned his men in nearby trenches that Russian forces were advancing across a field toward a patch of trees outside the city of Bakhmut The leader of the 225th Battalion of the 127th Kharkiv Territorial Defense Brigade then ordered a mortar team to get ready A mortar tube popped out a loud orange blast and an explosion cut a new crater in an already pockmarked hillside “We are moving forward,” Shiryaev said after at least one drone image showed a Russian fighter struck down Russian forces declared victory in the eastern city last month after the longest deadliest battle since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine began 15 months ago But Ukrainian defenders like Shiryaev aren’t retreating they are keeping up the pressure and continuing the fight from positions on the western fringes of Bakhmut READ MORE: Why Ukraine is waging a brutal war of attrition against Russia over Bakhmut The pushback gives commanders in Moscow another thing to think about ahead of a much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive that appears to be taking shape Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Russia sought to create the impression of calm around Bakhmut artillery shelling still goes on at levels similar to those at the height of the battle to take the city “The battle for the Bakhmut area hasn’t stopped; it is ongoing dressed in her characteristic fatigues in an interview from a military media center in Kyiv Russian forces are now trying — but failing — to oust Ukrainian fighters from the “dominant heights” overlooking Bakhmut “We are holding them very firmly,” she said From the Kremlin’s perspective, the area around Bakhmut is just part of the more than 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) front line that the Russian military must hold. That task could be made more difficult by the withdrawal of the mercenaries from private military contractor Wagner Group who helped take control of the city They will be replaced with Russian soldiers recent work has been opportunistic — trying to wrest small gains from the enemy and taking strategic positions notably from two flanks on the northwest and southwest where the Ukrainian 3rd Separate Assault Brigade has been active Russia had envisioned the capture of Bakhmut as partial fulfillment of its ambition to seize control of the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland. Now, its forces have been compelled to regroup, rotate fighters and rearm just to hold the city. Wagner’s owner announced a pullout after acknowledging the loss of more than 20,000 of his men Maliar described the nine-month struggle against Wagner forces in nearly existential terms: “If they had not been destroyed during the defense of Bakhmut one can imagine that all these tens of thousands would have advanced deeper into Ukrainian territory.” has been overshadowed in recent days by near-nightly attacks on Kyiv a series of unclaimed drone strikes near Moscow and the growing anticipation that Ukraine’s government will try to regain ground READ MORE: Latest Russian missile bombardment of Kyiv kills at least 3 people, including a child But the battle for the city could still have a lingering impact epitomized by triumphalism in Russian media Any slippage of Russia’s grip would be a political embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin Michael Kofman of the Center for Naval Analyses noted in a podcast this week that the victory brings new challenges in holding Bakhmut With Wagner fighters withdrawing, Russian forces are “going to be increasingly fixed to Bakhmut … and will find it difficult to defend,” Kofman told “War on the Rocks” in an interview posted Tuesday and the whole thing may have ended up being for nothing for them down the line,” he added A Western official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Russian airborne forces are heavily involved in replacing the departing Wagner troops — a step that is “likely to antagonize” the airborne leadership who see the duty as a further erosion of their “previously elite status” in the military Ukrainian forces have clawed back slivers of territory on the flanks — a few hundred meters (yards) per day — to solidify defensive lines and seek opportunities to retake some urban parts of the city “The goal in Bakhmut is not Bakhmut itself which has been turned into ruins,” military analyst Roman Svitan said by phone The goal for the Ukrainians is to hold on to the western heights and maintain a defensive arc outside the city WATCH: Longest battle of Ukraine war leaves city of Bakhmut in ruins More broadly, Ukraine wants to weigh down Russian forces and capture the initiative ahead of the counteroffensive — part of what military analysts call “shaping operations” to set the terms of the battle environment and put an enemy in a defensive, reactive posture. Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces in the east, said the strategic goal in the Bakhmut area was “to restrain the enemy and destroy as much personnel and equipment as possible” while preventing a Russian breakthrough or outflanking maneuver. Analyst Mathieu Boulègue questioned whether Bakhmut would hold lessons or importance for the war ahead. Military superiority matters, he said, but so does “information superiority” — the ability “to create subterfuge, to create obfuscation of your force, to be able to move in the shadows.” Boulègue, a consulting fellow with the Russia and Eurasia program at the Chatham House think tank in London, said those tactics “could determine which side gains an advantage that catches the other side by surprise, and turns the tide of the war.” Jamey Keaten reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Hanna Arhirova and Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, and Jill Lawless in London, contributed to this report. By Susie Blann, Elise Morton, Associated Press By Susie Blann, Joanna Kozlowska, Associated Press Compiled by Reuters editors; Editing by Hugh Lawson