KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Bakhmut “is in our hearts,” hours after the Russian defense ministry reported that Wagner’s private army forces, with the support of Russian troops, seized the town in eastern Ukraine.
Speaking alongside US President Joe Biden at the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Zelenskyy said the Russians destroyed “everything.” “You have to understand that there is nothing,” he said.
“For now, Bakhmut is only in our hearts,” he said. “There is nothing in this place.”
The statement of the Russian ministry on the Telegram channel came about eight hours after the same announcement by the head of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Ukrainian authorities at the time said fighting for Bakhmut was ongoing.
The eight-month battle for Bakhmut was the longest and possibly bloodiest of the conflict in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy’s comments came as Biden announced $375 million in additional aid for Ukraine, which includes more ammunition, artillery, and vehicles.
“I thank him for the important financial aid to (Ukraine) from (US),” Zelenskyy tweeted later.
Analysts say a Russian victory at Bakhmut is unlikely to turn the tide of the war.
The Russians’ capture of the last remaining land in Bakhmut is “not tactical or operationally important,” a Washington-based think tank said Saturday. The Institute for the Study of War says that control of these areas “does not provide Russian forces with significant terrain to continue conducting offensive operations,” nor to “defend against possible attacks in Ukraine.” .”
Using the city’s Soviet-era name, the Russian ministry said, “In the tactical direction of Artyomovsk, the attack groups of the private military company Wagner with the support of artillery and aviation in the southern battlefield completed the liberation of the city of Artyomovsk. “
Russian state news agencies quoted the Kremlin’s press service as saying that President Vladimir Putin “congratulated the detachments of the Wagner attack, as well as all the soldiers of the Armed Forces units of Russia, which gave them the necessary support and flank protection, to complete the operation. to liberate Artyomovsk.”
In a video posted earlier on Telegram, Wagner’s head Yevgeny Prigozhin said the city was under full Russian control around noon on Saturday. He spoke surrounded by about half a dozen fighters, with ruined buildings in the background and explosions heard in the distance.
Fighting continued in and around Bakhmut for more than eight months.
Russian forces will still face the enormous task of capturing the rest of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control, including many heavily fortified areas.
It is unclear which side paid the higher price in the fight for Bakhmut. Russia and Ukraine have sustained losses believed to be in the thousands, although casualty figures have not been disclosed.
Zelenskyy stressed the importance of defending Bakhmut in an interview with The Associated Press in March, saying its fall could allow Russia to rally international support for a deal that Kyiv could demand. that would make unacceptable compromises.
Analysts say Bakhmut’s fall is a blow to Ukraine and will give Russia some tactical advantages but will not prove decisive in the outcome of the war.
Russian forces still face the enormous task of capturing the rest of the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control, including many heavily fortified areas. The provinces of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk comprise the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland where a separatist uprising began in 2014 and which Moscow illegally annexed in September.
Bakhmut, located about 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the capital of the Russian-held region of Donetsk, had a pre-war population of 80,000 and was an important industrial center, surrounded by mines. of salt and gypsum.
The city, named Artyomovsk after a Bolshevik revolutionary when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, is also known for its sparkling wine production in underground caves. Wide tree-lined avenues, lush parks and a beautiful downtown with many late 19th-century mansions – all now a smoldering wasteland – make this one a popular tourist destination.
When a separatist rebellion engulfed eastern Ukraine in 2014 weeks after Moscow’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the rebels quickly won control of the city, only to lose it a few months later.
After Russia shifted its focus to the Donbas following a botched attempt to capture Kyiv early in the February 2022 invasion, Moscow’s troops tried to take Bakhmut in August but were turned back.
Fighting there stopped in the fall as Russia dealt with Ukrainian counteroffensives in the east and south, but it has continued at full speed for the past year. In January, Russia captured the salt mining town of Soledar, just north of Bakhmut, and closed the city’s suburbs.
Heavy Russian bombardment targeted the city and nearby villages as Moscow launched a three-pronged attack to try to end the resistance in what Ukrainians call “fortress Bakhmut.”
Mercenaries from Wagner led the Russian offensive. Prigozhin tried to use the war for the city to expand his power amid tensions with the main Russian military leaders whom he strongly criticized.
“We are fighting not only the armed forces of Ukraine in Bakhmut. We are fighting the Russian bureaucracy, which is throwing sand on the wheels,” Prigozhin said in the video on Saturday.
Incessant Russian artillery bombardment left few buildings intact amid fierce house-to-house fighting. Wagner fighters “marched the bodies of their own soldiers” according to Ukrainian officials. Both sides expended ammunition at a rate not seen in any armed conflict in decades, firing thousands of rounds per day.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said capturing the city would allow Russia to continue its offensive into the Donetsk region, one of four Ukrainian provinces illegally annexed by Moscow in September. .
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Zeke Miller reports from Hiroshima, Japan.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
