The Russian leadership wants to continue the battle for the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, which has been raging for months, with undiminished severity. “The liberation of Artemovsk (Russian name of Bakhmut) continues,” said Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Moscow.
The 67-year-old justified the insistence on the costly offensive by taking the city and breaking through the Ukrainian defense lines in depth.
The Ukrainian leadership had previously rejected alleged plans to withdraw from the embattled city. Both sides report high losses of the opposing war party.
Shoigu: 11,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in February
According to Shoigus, the number of Ukrainian deaths and injuries has recently increased significantly. “In February alone, they (losses) increased by 40 percent and exceeded 11,000 soldiers,” the minister claimed.
Ukraine does not give its own death toll. Minister Shoigu added that NATO’s arms deliveries would not help Ukraine to victory.
The Ukrainian leadership previously decided to stick to Bakhmut’s defense. The city, which had a good 70,000 inhabitants before the war, has been the subject of fierce fighting for months. It is now mostly destroyed.
Ukraine speaks of higher losses at the opponent
Although Kiev also admitted its own losses in the battles, the casualties of the attackers were significantly higher. The Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov put the number of casualties of the Russian attackers in Bakhmut at up to 500 men per day. He blamed the ruthless actions of businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Russian private army Wagner, who was operating there, for the high number of victims.
