Bakhmut Holds Despite Claims To the Contrary (Again)

Ukrainian troops continue to hold Bakhmut as fighting continues, despite Russian claims that the rubble which now constitutes it has been taken. 

While many in Ukraine and NATO think it might be more advantageous to disengage from there, the Ukrainian defense has so far proven effective at degrading Russian forces. JL 

Alexander Khrebet reports in the Kyiv Independent, image Diego Carcedo, Anadolu:

On April 3 fighting raged around the government building in Bakhmut, contrary to Prigozhin’s claim about capturing it. Bakhmut, alongside Avdiivka, Marinka, and their outskirts remain the epicenter of the ongoing fighting. Russia has been trying to capture Bakhmut for over eight months. Standing in ruins, the city is now nearly emptied of its pre-war population of 70,000 people.  “They raised the flag over some kind of toilet… Let them think they've taken it.”

Ukraine denied Russia’s recent claims of “legally” capturing Bakhmut, an embattled city in Donetsk Oblast, on April 2.

Ukrainian officials’ comments came after Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Russian state-backed private paramilitary company Wagner Group, said that his mercenaries had raised the Russian flag on the Bakhmut city hall.

Prigozhin said on April 2 that Bakhmut had been “legally taken” and the Ukrainian forces were “concentrated in the western area” of the city.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak urged to “calmly react to fakes inventing a victory, which does not exist in reality,” adding that “Bakhmut is Ukraine.”

“The enemy is weakening and trying to cover up its failures with new fakes about the capture of Bakhmut,” Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s Land Forces chief, wrote in a Telegram post after visiting the Bakhmut sector on April 3.

Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Eastern Military Command, said on April 3 that fighting raged around the government building in Bakhmut, contrary to Prigozhin’s claim about capturing it.

“They raised the flag over some kind of toilet… Let them think they've taken it,” Cherevatyi told Reuters.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its evening update on April 3 that Bakhmut, alongside Avdiivka, Marinka, and their outskirts remain the epicenter of the ongoing fighting.

The Ukrainian military successfully repelled over 45 Russian attacks in the eastern Donetsk Oblast on April 3, the General Staff said.

Russia has been trying to capture Bakhmut for over eight months, stepping up its efforts in the fall. Standing in ruins, the city is now nearly emptied of its pre-war population of 70,000 people.