As the battle for the key eastern city of Bakhmut continues, Ukrainian forces managed to destroy Russian trenches on the outskirts of the city, turning them into a “grave,” the Ukrainian Border Guard said Tuesday on its official Telegram channel.
“The rifle unit of the Russian Federation set up an improvised dugout in the forest strip. Our fighters tracked down the hiding place of the enemy infantry and hit it with mortars,” the Ukrainian Border Guard said.
The Border Guard reported that five “invaders” were buried under rubble and another four occupants were wounded after the attack destroyed the structure.
The city of Bakhmut has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in recent days, as Russian forces try to take control of the Kostiantynivka-Bakhmut highway and disrupt supplies to Bakhmut. Keeping the city under Ukrainian control would represent a symbolic victory for Kyiv but if the city is taken by Russian forces it would give them an opportunity to advance further to the strategically important cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
Fighters from the Russian mercenary company Wagner have been leading the fight against Ukrainian forces in and around Bakhmut but on Monday, Volodymyr Nazarenko, deputy commander of the “Svoboda” battalion of the 4th Rapid Reaction Brigade of Ukraine’s National Guard, said in an interview on Ukrainian television that it seemed Wagner fighters have now been replaced by Russian paratroopers.
A post published Tuesday on the official Telegram channel of Dmytro Kukharchuk, commander of the 2nd assault battalion of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, says the claimed invincibility of the Wagner military unit is now a “myth.”
“I have to admit that in some areas they do manage to carry out the tactics of a creeping offensive. In their opinion, it is successful, in my opinion – absolutely not, because the round-the-clock bombardment of our positions with corpses, which results in rare cases in advancement of 50 meters, can hardly be called a success,” the post reads.
CNN is unable to independently verify these claims.
“Ultimately, the war is not about territories, but about people who will then liberate even more territories, as it happened in Kharkiv or Kherson. Their attitude towards people has not changed since [Red Army General] Zhukov’s time,” the post continues.
