War in Ukraine: Almost surrounded, Ukrainian soldiers push back the Russians

CHASIV YAR, Ukraine – Lined up in the dark in civilian vehicles, their lights turned off, a company of soldiers waited silently at the side of a road. A second company was stationed further back, and an occasional light inside a car revealed the face of a soldier. Still farther back, a third company was moving into position.

After months of pitched battle, the fighting for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut seemed to be reaching its climax in recent days, as Russian forces were about to encircle the city and some Ukrainian units withdrew.

Then, early on Saturday, the Ukrainian assault brigades went on the attack. Over the weekend, hundreds of troops joined the counteroffensive, mounting attacks from the ground and shelling Russian positions with artillery from the surrounding hills.

Ukrainian commanders recognized that their forces in Bakhmut still faced the risk of being surrounded. Photo: Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

Ukrainian commanders acknowledged that their forces in Bakhmut were still at risk of being encircled, but the weekend’s fighting showed that an army that has surprised the world with its tenacity was not yet ready to surrender in Bakhmut. It was not so clear how control of the city fit into the overall plans.

Even before Ukraine stepped up attacks on the Russians in Bakhmut over the weekend, its forces had been mobilized to push Russian troops back from the last main access route into the city.

This preserved both a supply line that has helped Ukrainian soldiers slow down the Russian offensive for months and an exit route for them should they decide to withdraw.

“I am confident that Bakhmut will resist,” said Colonel Yevhen Mezhevikin, commander of a combined tactical group fighting Bakhmut.

“We have enough forces to push the enemy back from this city, but it depends on the tasks the command has, whether it is to hold the city or inflict maximum losses on the enemy.”

On the ground, other soldiers seem much less confident.

The fighting over the weekend showed that the Ukrainians are not yet ready to surrender at Bakhmut. Photo: Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

The real value of Bakhmut

Bakhmut, which had a population of 70,000 before the war, has little strategic value. It was simply next in line for a Russian offensive to take over the eastern province of Donetsk.

But the battle for the city constitutes a decisive moment of the war for both the Russian and Ukrainian armies. The fight is no longer about Bakhmut: it is a competition to see which army can defeat the other.

Russia has launched tens of thousands of newly mobilized soldiers in a massive ground attack to take the city through sheer firepower and manpower. Ukraine has used all the tactics learned during a year of war to hold its own and inflict maximum casualties on the invader, often fighting house to house in neighborhoods of destroyed houses and stunted trees.

Some Bakhmut inhabitants were evacuated. Others decided to stay. Photo: Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

In recent weeks, Ukrainian troops have continued to lose ground, ceding towns and outlying suburbs. And the end of winter is especially harsh. Weeks of freezing temperatures and now the start of mud season have sapped their strength, the soldiers said.

“The fog is constant: at night we see almost nothing,” the commander of a combat drone unit attached to the 59th brigade, code name Madyar, said in a video message from the front.

“The temperature is above zero for the third day,” he added. “Everything has melted. It’s knee-deep in mud. It rains ten times a day. That makes tactical tasks difficult.”

Madyar said that as of late last week, his unit was pulling out. Other units have done it too. It is not yet clear whether the moves were part of a rotation or a controlled withdrawal.

Destroyed houses in Bakhmut. Photo: Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

relentless attack

In a nearby town, Chasiv Yar, the terrifying power of the Russian attack is unmistakable. Shops and houses are boarded up and the streets deserted, save for a few civilians carrying plastic shopping bags. On recent visits, the explosions were almost constant: Ukrainian artillery was firing at Russian positions in and around Bakhmut and Russian guns were firing back.

Lena, a woman walking home with her groceries on Saturday afternoon, ignored the explosions, barely glancing at the unexploded rockets jutting out from the asphalt.

“My daughter left, but I stayed,” he said. “It is my home”.

Others are leaving.

The terrifying power of the Russian attack is unmistakable. Photo: Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

Early this morning last week, rescue teams from the Save Ukraine solidarity organization rushed to evacuate some of the last residents of a particularly exposed neighborhood near the canal.

They pulled out a couple, Viktor, 73, and Lyudmila, 67, who had fled their house after their neighbor’s house was hit by a shell. A second marriage refused to leave. The husband said that his wife had a stomach ache.

Ukrainian army units are spread out over the rolling hills surrounding Chasiv Yar and Bakhmut. Artillery guns and tanks are lined up among the trees and soldiers are scattered in private homes, their vehicles concealed under camouflage netting or behind buildings.

In the sky, Ukrainian planes are occasionally seen, often in the morning on sorties to the front line. But this is above all an artillery war.

“We repel 15 to 20 attacks a day,” said Vladyslav, 26, commander of a self-propelled artillery battery located 6 to 7 kilometers outside Bakhmut. “Today everything is going more or less well,” he said cheerfully.

The rate of artillery fire has been unusual.

“Imagine: twenty guys come, we kill them. In five minutes, twenty more guys come, we kill them. In an hour, twenty more. They don’t care about men.”

“On average, we fire between 80 and 120 shells a day,” Vladyslav said. “In a month and a half, we have fired more than 5,000 shells.”

But artillery ammunition is running low, a problem that senior officials say helps explain the steady loss of ground.

“There is a shortage,” Mezhevikin said. “I would like to have more people, more vehicles, more ammunition to destroy the enemy in the approaches and their reserves, so that our people have fewer losses and not have such intense fighting.”

Units have had to learn to be careful with ammunition, explained Maj. Olexander Pantsyrny, commander of the Aidar Assault Battalion, a renowned combat unit. “You have to constantly plan, calculate the consumption of ammunition.”

‘A worthy adversary’

Those restrictions make it difficult for Ukrainian combat units to stop the advances of the Wagner Group, a private military company leading the Russian offensive to take Bakhmut.

The Wagner group has bolstered its forces with thousands of inmates, but its top professionals have proven to be skilled fighters, several Ukrainian commanders who fought against them said.

“We realized they were a worthy opponent,” Pantsyrny said. “They have quite a bit of combat experience; they have motivated personnel.”

Pantsyrny’s battalion was sent to attack Wagner’s positions in the village of Kodema, south of Bakhmut.

“The enemy was sending 20 men to attack six or seven times a day,” said Olexander, a company commander who took part in the assault. He did not give his last name following military protocol.

“Imagine: twenty guys come, we kill them. In five minutes, twenty more guys come, we kill them. In an hour, twenty more. They don’t care about men.”

Then, after three weeks, the Russians surprised the battalions with a flanking move, breaking through a weaker unit in the flank. The Aidar battalion was forced to withdraw.

A commander of another battalion, Dnipro 1, which has spent months facing Wagner units, said he found them more agile and enterprising than most Russian army units.

The commander, who uses the code name Duke, said Wagner used untrained prisoners in the first line of attack and then, after an hour or two, when the Ukrainian troops were getting tired, he sent in special forces, attacking from the front lines. flanks. “It was a very good tactic,” Duke said.

elimination zone

However, Ukraine has been able to use Bakhmut as a “kill zone” to reduce the large number of newly mobilized Russian soldiers who were brought onto the battlefield late last year, he noted. It is said that even Wagner’s forces have been exhausted since the summer.

“We broke his spine; we killed all his military personnel,” Pantsyrny said.

He added that apparently only a few professional soldiers were left to lead the thousands of prisoners who had been recruited to fill the ranks and that the losses were noticeable: “They try something, but the results are no longer the same.”

Nevertheless, the Russian troops have been advancing thanks to their greater numbers, reinforced by tens of thousands of inexperienced recruits and through sheer brute force. Sometimes they destroy entire blocks of homes to take down a single sniper, according to a unit of soldiers.

But the Russian casualties, especially among Wagner’s troops, have been enormous, and the most confident Ukrainian commanders insist that the Russians have little rope left. “Russia is attacking with its last breath,” said Olexander, the company commander.

Ukrainian casualties have also been relentless and there is a shortage of volunteers at points on the front lines, Duke said. In November, he received an urgent order to “gather all the people of our unit, cooks, drivers, press officer, photographer, all the staff, take rifles and go to the Bakhmut area.”

By the end of February, 50% of the men had been injured, he said, and some were depressed and listless.

Ukrainian casualty figures are not publicly available, but there are growing signs of stress over losses and exhaustion in many units.

“We’re tired,” exclaimed an army mechanic, Yaroslav, as he left a small-town bar one night last week. “You have to know the truth. They are killing us.”

© The New York Times

Translation: Elisa Carnelli

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