MOSCOW: Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Tuesday said the capture of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was key to launching a further offensive in the wider Ukrainian region.
“Bakhmut is an important defensive hub for Ukrainian troops in Donbas,” Shoigu said of the country’s industrial east.
“Capturing this city will allow for further offensive operations deep into the defence lines of the Ukrainian armed forces,” Shoigu told a televised meeting of military officials.
The battle for Bakhmut city is now the longest-running and bloodiest of year-long Russia’s military interventions in Ukraine. Both sides have doubled down in the fight for control of the region.
Bakhmut city, an industrial hub once known for salt mines and its sparkling wine production, had an estimated pre-war population of around 80,000 people.
Bakhmut residents fleeing to safer places
But Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk, told regional media on Tuesday that less than 4,000 civilians remain in the city.
“Approximately 38 children, as far as we know, remain in Bakhmut city today,” Vereshchuk said.
On Tuesday, both Russia and Ukraine said that the fight was exacting a massive cost on military personnel on the opposing side.
The Ukrainian military said Russian forces were launching attacks on Bakhmut and its outskirts “despite significant losses.”
Meanwhile, Shoigu said there was a “significant increase in losses” among Ukrainian forces during recent fighting for the Bakhmut region.
Neither side has published official tolls from fighting in the Donetsk region, which Moscow claimed to have annexed into Russia last year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced this week that he had instructed the army to find forces to bolster the defence of Bakhmut.
Analysts say that despite the massive resources being thrown by both sides at the battle, Bakhmut offers little strategic importance in the broader fight.
