Russian forces declared victory in Bakhmut last month after the longest, deadliest battle since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine began 15 months ago, but Ukrainian defenders aren't retreating. Instead, they are keeping up the pressure and continuing the fight from positions on the western fringes of Bakhmut.
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.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Russia sought to create the impression of calm around Bakhmut, but in fact, artillery shelling still goes on at levels similar to those at the height of the battle to take the city. The fight, she said, is evolving into a new phase. 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."
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.
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