UK Reports Russia Has “Largely Stalled” in Bakhmut, Shifting Focus

The head of Ukraine’s military said that they were fighting hard against the Russian troops to get back the town of Bakhmut. Meanwhile, British army officers think that Russia might be planning to go onto the defensive in eastern Ukraine.

General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who was in a telephone call with Admiral Sir Tony Radakin (Britain’s chief of defense staff), said that the fight to keep control of Bakhmut has been really difficult. He also said that thanks to the hard work of the defense forces, the situation there is slowly improving.

This battle has been going on for seven months now, and what makes it even more tough is that Russia has sent both their own soldiers and mercenaries from the Wagner Group to help them gain control.

Russian forces have been trying to push further into eastern Donbas region, but they need to go through Bakhmut first. Western officials think that Bakhmut’s capture will not change the outcome of the war much. Britain’s Defense Ministry stated that Russia’s attacks on Bakhmut are almost halted because they have lost a lot of their forces during the battle.

Russia might be changing its focus onto two different areas. This means they are going back to a type of defense instead of trying to attack since the start of this year and it doesn’t seem to have worked out very well.

The Ukrainian military said they couldn’t predict what their future strategy will be and that Bakhmut is still the main target of the Russians. A spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern forces, Serhii Cherevaty, said Russia has decreased its attacks to fewer than 20 a day from 30 to 50 not too long ago. He added that next week will give us an answer on how the situation could unfold.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk province where Bakhmut is located, said that two civilians were killed around the area. During Friday night, Russian rockets hit Kramatorsk but luckily nobody got injured. A day later on Saturday, two more civilians were killed by Russian artillery in Chasiv Yar (west of Bakhmut) and Toretsk (south).

Two people died and six were hurt when Russia opened fire in the Kherson region in Ukraine. For more information, check out the AP’s article on the war between Russia and Ukraine here: https://bigbignews.net/russia-ukraine.