Ukrainians flee ‘hell on earth’ as Russian forces move to take Bakhmut

Ukrainian troops and civilians on Saturday fled the “hell on earth” that Bakhmut has become as Russian forces inched closer to taking the battered eastern city seen as key to Moscow’s eastern push.

At least one woman was killed and two men were badly injured by Russian airstrikes while trying to cross a makeshift bridge out of Bakhmut, the center of intense fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine for months.

Two bridges in the city were demolished over the past two days, including a span connecting the city’s last main supply route to the city of Chasiv Yar, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update Saturday.

The city was “under increasingly severe pressure,” the report said, with both Russian Army and Wagner Group forces advancing into the suburbs, making it possible to attack Ukrainian forces from three sides.

Separately, the head of the Wagner mercenary force — which infamously recruited convicts from Russian prisons to join its forces in exchange for freedom — said that Bakhmut is “practically surrounded.”

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Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch and founder of the mercenary group, called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to withdraw his forces from Bakhmut in a video recorded on a rooftop four miles north of the city.

“Only one route [out of the city] is left,” Prigozhin said in the video posted on Telegram. “The pincers are closing.”

After Prigozhin spoke, the camera panned to what appear to be three captured Ukrainians, two boys and an older bearded man, who then ask to go home.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said that a Ukrainian retreat from Bakhmut appears imminent.

Ukrainian troops might “conduct a limited and controlled withdrawal from particularly difficult sections of eastern Bakhmut” if the military deems it necessary, the group wrote in an assessment of the Russian offensive.

Russian forces have been trying to take Bakhmut since May 2022 and have suffered “devastating casualties in the process,” the think tank added.

Losing the city to enemy forces would cause supply issues for Ukraine, but its strategic value is dwarfed by the potential symbolic importance of what would mark Russia’s first victory in months, following a bloody stalemate in the region throughout the winter.

Casualties have also been mounting in Ukraine, where at least 8,006 civilians were confirmed killed and 13,287 injured since Russia invaded a year ago, the United Nations Human Rights Office said Saturday, adding that the actual figures are likely higher. Estimates for troop deaths vary widely but Western intelligence sources estimate that each side has suffered about 150,000 casualties on the battlefield.

In Bakhmut, a police group known as “Dark Angels” has been removing the dead while their counterparts, the “White Angels” scramble to evacuate the remaining children and elderly from the ravaged city, the Observer reported.

Oleksandra Hacrylko, a police major with the White Angels, said that the group’s search for endangered children has led to rumors that authorities are taking kids from parents who refuse to leave.

“There have been cases of people hiding children because they’ve heard rumors that the police will take their children by force,” she said, insisting that the rumors are not true and that they will only evacuate children with the consent of their parents.

Moscow’s forces Saturday also continued targeting other regions with airstrikes.

Zelensky posted an image of a destroyed apartment building in Zaporizhzhia, a region home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

At least 11 died in the strike, The Telegraph reported.

Separately, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was ridiculed during a speech on Moscow’s energy policy when he claimed the war was “launched against” his country.

“The war, which we are trying to stop, which was launched against us using the…” Lavrov said at the G20 Summit in New Dheli, India, before being cut off by laughter.

“Ukrainian people, of course, influenced the policy of Russia, including energy policy,” Lavrov continued before he was stopped by more laughter and an audience member yelling “Come on.”