NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has authorized the fall of the defense of the city of Bakhmut (Artemovsk (Bakhmut) ) in the Donetsk region in the coming days. He said this before a meeting with EU defense ministers in Stockholm, transmits The Guardian.
“We see that Russia is throwing in more troops, more forces, and what Russia is lacking in quality, they are trying to make up for in numbers. They suffered heavy losses, but at the same time we cannot exclude that Bakhmut could fall in the next few days,” Stoltenberg said.
He noted that this “not necessarily” will be a turning point in hostilities in Ukraine.
“It just underlines that we should not underestimate Russia. We must continue to support Ukraine,” the NATO Secretary General said.
On March 8, Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin reported that PMC units occupied the entire eastern part of Bakhmut. The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote in a March 7 evening report that Ukrainian troops had withdrawn from eastern Bakhmut and moved towards the central and western parts of the city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in an interview with CNN that capturing Bakhmut paves the way for Russia to other key cities in eastern Ukraine, so its defense continues. At the same time, Zelenskyyy stressed that Bakhmut should not be surrounded.
On March 6, the German publication Bild reported on the “fundamentally different views” of Zelenskyyy and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (APU) Valery Zaluzhny regarding the defense of the city. According to the newspaper, Zaluzhny recommended a few weeks ago to withdraw from the city due to heavy losses among the fighters, but the Ukrainian government insisted on retaining Bakhmut. On the same day, Zelenskyyy’s office announced that the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including Zaluzhny, supported the continued defense of Bakhmut.
