Biden said Russia had more than 100,000 casualties in Bakhmut, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy compared the destruction of Bakhmut to the nuclear attack launched by the United States against Japan’s Hiroshima during World War II.
Zelenskyy, who held a private meeting with Biden at the G7 summit in Hiroshima on Sunday, said he was certain Kiev would get F-16 fighter jets from the West after months of pressure to get them, noting that “the Russian Federation did not control Bakhmut until today.
“I will say it frankly: the images of destruction in Hiroshima remind me of Bakhmut and other similar settlements. Nothing was left alive, all the buildings collapsed,” he added.
“The world knows our position. Guarantees of security and defence, the return of all our lands and all our people, justice and the implementation of our peace plan,” Zelenskyy said in his recorded speech Sunday evening. on board an airplane.
Ukrainian effort to encircle Bakhmut
Ukraine said its forces were still advancing around the outskirts of Bakhmut, aiming to encircle it, after Moscow praised its forces and the Wagner special military group for capturing the town. A senior Ukrainian military commander said his country’s forces control a “minimal” part of the town of Bakhmut, but that’s a foothold that will be enough to enter the destroyed town when the situation changes. In a message on Telegram, General Oleksandr Sersky said Ukrainian forces were advancing on the outskirts of Bakhmut and were close to a “tactical encirclement” of the town, which was once home to around 70,000 people. Sersky, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, added on Sunday that he had visited some frontline sites near Bakhmut and thanked the forces defending the area. Hana Malyar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, confirmed Sersky’s remarks, in which he said Ukrainian forces continued to advance around the outskirts of the city. “Our forces control the city by encircling it partially, which gives us the possibility of destroying the enemy. Therefore, the enemy must defend themselves in the part of the city they control,” Maliar wrote on Telegram. . Malyar added that Ukrainian forces were still defending industrial facilities and infrastructure in Bakhmut, in addition to a sector of the city, and claimed that his country’s forces controlled part of the elevated areas overlooking the city. A statement from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that the Russian offensive around Pakhmut has not abated in the past 24 hours, including airstrikes on the town and village of Ivanevsky on its west side. Kiev says its objective in Bakhmut is to draw Russian forces from elsewhere on the front into the city to inflict heavy casualties there and weaken Moscow’s line of defense in other areas before launching a planned counter-offensive major.
Wagner leaves Bakhmut
Later Sunday, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an audio message on Telegram that his men had completed their mission and would leave the conflict zone within days. “Today Wagner has not seized any land. We have taken all the land that we promised to seize to the last centimeter… We are currently handing over our positions to the (Russian) Ministry of Defense, and on the 25th may we will leave the conflict zone,” he added.
Military analysts say Bakhmut has no significant strategic value, but Moscow has said its capture would be a springboard for an incursion into the Donbass region, which it says it has annexed to Ukraine.
The capture of Bakhmut would mark Moscow’s first major victory in the more than 10-month struggle to capture the city.
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