KYIV (Dispatches) – Ukraine and Russia have claimed that hundreds of enemy troops were killed in the fight for Bakhmut, with Kyiv fending off unabating attacks and a small river that bisects the town now marking the new front line.
Serhiy Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesperson, said that 221 pro-Moscow troops were killed and more than 300 wounded in Bakhmut. Russia’s defence ministry said that up to 210 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the broader Donetsk part of the frontline.
While Moscow did not specify Bakhmut casualties, the eastern Donetsk town, now nearly deserted, has been the site of one of the bloodiest and longest battles of the year-long war.
Both sides have admitted to suffering and inflicting significant losses in Bakhmut, while the exact number of casualties is difficult to independently verify.
British military intelligence said on Saturday that Russia’s Wagner group has taken control of most of the eastern part of Bakhmut - an advance that the group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed on Wednesday.
“In the city centre, the Bakhmutka River now marks the front line,” the British Defence Ministry said in its daily intelligence bulletin.
Ukraine insisted that it was holding on in Bakhmut and was giving a “decent rebuff” to Russian forces, with the commander in charge of defending Bakhmut saying its protection was key for a Ukrainian counter-strike.
Moscow says capturing Bakhmut would punch a hole in Ukrainian defenses and be a step towards seizing all of the Donbas industrial region, a major target. Kyiv says the battle is grinding down Russia’s best units.
Prigozhin said that he is now 1.2 km (0.75 mile) away from the administrative centre of the city. The center is on the west side of the Bakhmutka River.
Since the onset of the war, the United States and Ukraine’s other Western allies have sent Kiev tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including rocket systems, drones, armored vehicles, tanks, and communication systems.
In the latest news, the Pentagon announced to seek more than $300 billion from the U.S. government for Ukraine’s weapons procurement and R & D (research and development) in the upcoming 2024 fiscal year.
Western countries have also imposed a slew of economic sanctions on Moscow. The Kremlin has said the sanctions and the Western military assistance risk prolonging the war that recently completed one year.