Update on Bakhmut from the Ukrainian correspondent Yuriy Butusov (
t.me/ButusovPlus/23…):
"The situation in Bakhmut
Ukrainian forces hold most of the city, including the center. Although some of our units were withdrawn from the city, this is more a matter of rotation and not a general order to withdraw. A significant number of our troops are still fighting here. There are people and equipment.
The enemy captured the eastern part of the city, up to the Bakhmutka River. The main attack of the Russians is not in the city, but from the north, bypassing the city. The battle is over the supply path that remains. This path is under enemy fire. The enemy is encouraging our troops to withdraw from Bakhmut, as a real threat of encirclement has been created. But the enemy is advancing slowly, and that is why the Ukrainian command is sure that there are still opportunities to hold the escape routes for a while, slowing down the pace of advance and inflicting even more losses on the Russians.
Holding the city for us in conditions of limited communication is not profitable now from the point of view of tactics. This is a matter of strategy - the Ukrainian command will hold the city until the last moment, as always. Unlike Kherson, Balaklia, Izyum, Lyman, and Kupyansk, which the Russians fled from, the Ukrainians are not leaving the city without long resistance.
The enemy is forced to pay dearly, and slowly moves from woodline to woodline, from house to house.
Everyone who fights in the city in unfavorable conditions hopes that the time of this heroic resistance is used to create reliable, well-equipped and camouflaged defense lines to cover Siversk, Chasiv Yar, Kostyantynivka, Druzhkivka, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, the lines to which these combat-capable troops will be withdrawn in time. These will be reliably entrenched to be able to defeat the enemy.
Ukrainian soldiers demonstrate high combat capability. And where there is effective management, intelligence, organization, support, at least some ammunition for artillery and mortars, the Russians are being defeated there. We have an advantage due to higher quality, more motivated and more resilient people. But war is a clash of two systems, and everything depends not only on soldiers."
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