Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who is in charge of all ground forces in Ukraine, went to the besieged town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine over the weekend to boost morale and talk strategy with the units defending the town and the villages around it.
Military experts think that in the next few days, Ukraine’s forces will put in their “maximum effort” to defend Bakhmut, which has seen some of the bloodiest attritional fighting since Russia invaded a year ago.
Russia’s plan to take control of the industrial Donbas region in the east of Ukraine has Bakhmut as a top goal.
“(Syrskyi) listened to the unit commanders talk about urgent problems, helped solve them, and supported the servicemen,” the Ground Forces said on the Telegram messaging app.
The 57-year-old commander is one of the most experienced in Ukraine. He has been called the mastermind behind the defeat of Russian forces when they moved towards Kyiv early in the war and in the Kharkiv region in September.
Syrskyi has made a number of trips to Bakhmut, where he is now in charge of defending the town. He is sure that Kyiv’s forces will be able to hold the town.
“A well-thought-out system of man-made barriers and a natural (hilly) landscape have turned the area into a real, impregnable fortress where more than a thousand enemies have died,” Syrskyi said in early February.
Russia had recently made progress towards encircling Bakhmut, where only about 5,000 of the original 70,000 people still live. However, Russia did not capture the town, so Russian President Vladimir Putin could not declare a victory on Friday, which was the first anniversary of his invasion on February 24.
Over the weekend, Russian forces around the village of Yahidne were pushed back by Ukrainian forces. This happened after Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said it had taken Yahidne and Berkhivka.
On Sunday, the Russian defence ministry said that its troops had destroyed Ukrainian “sabotage and reconnaissance groups,” including one near Yahidne. Meanwhile, the Russian state news agency TASS said that Ukrainian troops had blown up a dam just north of Bakhmut.
In the south and east of Ukraine, especially near Bakhmut, there are still fierce battles along the front lines. Each side is trying to move the line slowly, sometimes just a few metres at a time.
Military experts say that the Ukrainian counterattacks north of Bakhmut over the weekend have helped to keep the front there stable. But Moscow has been sending in new troops and supplies over and over again.
Oleh Zhdanov, a military analyst in Ukraine, said in a video shared on social media that Russia might start attacking on Monday from three sides. “Ukraine does everything it can to keep Bakhmut.”
Putin said that he had to invade Ukraine to protect Russian sovereignty, but Ukraine and its allies in the West say that it was just a land grab.
