KYIV – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated Sunday that Bakhmut was “only in our hearts,” hours after Russia’s defense ministry confirmed that fighters of the Wagner private army had conquered the city in eastern Ukraine with the help of Russian troops.
Speaking alongside President Joe Biden at the Group of Seven meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, Zelensky acknowledged the city had fallen, but added, “You have to understand that there is nothing,” stating of the Russians, “They destroyed everything.”
“For the time being, Bakhmut exists only in our hearts,” he explained. “There’s nothing in this place.”
The Russian ministry’s Telegram message came approximately eight hours after Wagner CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin made a similar assertion. At the time, Ukrainian authorities stated that the battle for Bakhmut was still ongoing.
The eight-month war for the city in eastern Ukraine is the longest and most violent in Ukraine’s conflict.
Using the city’s Soviet-era name, the Russian ministry stated, “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.”
According to Russian state media, 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 successful completion of the operation to liberate Artyomovsk.”
Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin stated in a video uploaded earlier on Telegram that the city was fully under Russian control about lunchtime Saturday. He spoke with a half-dozen fighters flanking him, with wrecked buildings in the background and explosions audible in the distance.
For more than eight months, fighting has raged in and around Bakhmut.
The tremendous challenge of taking the remaining section of the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control, including several well fortified districts, will still be faced by Russian forces.
It’s unclear who paid the highest price in the war for Bakhmut. Both Russia and Ukraine have suffered losses in the thousands, though neither has revealed casualty figures.
In a March interview with The Associated Press, Zelensky emphasized the necessity of protecting Bakhmut, saying that its fall may allow Russia to garner international support for an agreement that would oblige Kyiv to make humiliating concessions.
According to analysts, Bakhmut’s collapse would be a setback to Ukraine and provide Russia some tactical benefits, but it would not be critical in the war’s outcome.
The task of retaking the rest of the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control, including several well fortified districts, remains immense for Russian forces. The regions of Donetsk and Luhansk comprise the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland where a separatist revolt began in 2014 and was unlawfully annexed by Moscow in September.
Bakhmut, about 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk, had a prewar population of 80,000 people and was a major industrial hub surrounded by salt and gypsum mines.
Source: Reuters