Ukraine Takes 10 More Russian Bakhmut Positions, Kills 2 Russian Commanders

In announcing the deaths of the two senior commanders, the Kremlin stated that they had been killed fighting Ukrainian attacks in Bakhmut, which suggests the intensity of the battle as Ukrainian forces advance. JL

The Kyiv Post reports:

Kyiv's forces have captured more than ten Russian positions on the outskirts of Bakhmut. It marks the latest development in a string of successes for Ukraine in the area of Bakhmut. (And) In a rare announcement of its losses on the battlefield, the Russian defence ministry said the commander of the 4th motorised rifle brigade, Vyacheslav Makarov, and Yevgeny Brovko, deputy commander of the Army Corps for military-political work, had been killed in fighting in Bakhmut.

Ukraine’s deputy defense minister has said Kyiv's forces have captured more than ten Russian positions on the outskirts of the frontline city of Bakhmut.

 

“Enemy soldiers of various units have been captured,” Ganna Malyar said in a post on social media on Sunday evening.

 

“Anyone who knows the real situation and is there now understands the gravity of what is happening,” she added.

Malyar said that "fierce" fighting continued in Bakhmut, located in the eastern region of Donetsk, and that Russians were trying to advance and destroying "everything" on their way.

 

It marks the latest development in what appears to be a string of successes for Ukraine in the area of Bakhmut.

 

On Saturday Kyiv said its armed forces were "moving forward" in the Bakhmut sector, in what the head of the mercenary group Wagner has described as a “rout” for Russian forces.

"Our soldiers are moving forward in some areas of the front, and the enemy is losing equipment and manpower," Commander of Ukrainian ground forces Oleksandr Syrskyi said on social media.

 

 On Friday, Kyiv said its troops had advanced two kilometres near the besieged city. Russia’s defense ministry then acknowledged its forces had fallen back but said it was for strategic reasons and they had taken up a better defensive position in the Maloilinivka area, a move that took advantage of "the favourable conditions of the Berkhivka reservoir".

 

The Kremlin’s seemingly calm response to Ukraine’s advances were in stark contrast to that of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, who is spearheading Moscow's attack on Bakhmut.

On Friday afternoon he accused the Russian army of "fleeing" from around the city.

 

And earlier in the week, a fierce Ukrainian counterattack in the Bakhmut sector destroyed Russian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, killing as many as 500 soldiers from the Wagner mercenary group, in the worst tactical defeat suffered by the Kremlin’s forces in months.

 

In tough, close-in fighting, soldiers from Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, backed by T-64 tanks and M-113 armored personnel carriers, wiped out a chain of Russian defensive positions to the southwest of Bakhmut, advancing Ukrainian-controlled territory to the key Bakhmutovka River.

Russia said Sunday that two of its military commanders had been killed in combat near the frontline hotspot of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

In a rare announcement of its losses on the battlefield, the Russian defence ministry said in a statement that the commander of the 4th motorised rifle brigade, Vyacheslav Makarov, and Yevgeny Brovko, deputy commander of the Army Corps for military-political work, had been killed in fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The announcement came as battles raged for control of Bakhmut in the eastern region of Donetsk. Colonel Makarov was killed as his brigade repelled attacks by Ukrainian troops south of the settlement of Krasne, the defence ministry said in a statement.

"Two attacks of the enemy have been repelled," the statement said. "As a third attack was being repelled, the brigade commander was seriously wounded and died during the evacuation from the battlefield."

Brovko was killed as Russian troops repelled attacks elsewhere, the ministry said, saying he "died heroically, having received multiple shrapnel wounds".

Moscow also said Sunday that Russian forces had struck Western arm depots and Ukrainian troops in the western city of Ternopil and the eastern town of Petropavlivka.

Russia’s armed forces “delivered a strike with high-precision long-range air and sea-based weapons at the points of deployment of the Ukrainian armed forces,” the defence ministry said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.

 

“Places of storage of ammunition, weapons and military equipment received from Western countries” were also struck, it said, adding that "all" targets had been hit.

Russia targeted Ternopil as Ukraine's Eurovision act Tvorchi, who hail from the western town, performed in Liverpool on Saturday night.

"Our hometown... was bombed by Russia while we sang on the Eurovision stage about our steel hearts, indomitability and will," Tvorchi posted, dedicating their performance to "all cities of Ukraine that are shelled every day."