The battle for Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region was the bloodiest in the two-and-a-half-year Russian aggression against Ukraine, which ended last year in May with the Russian invasion.
The city has almost been leveled to the ground, while the latest images show the extent of the destruction of this city, Telegrafi reports.
The Russians began shelling Bakhmut in May 2022 and in August of the same year, mainly using the forces of the Wagner mercenary group, began the invasion.
Although analysts’ assessments spoke of Bakhmut’s minor strategic importance in terms of the further course of the war, the battle for that city turned into one of the bloodiest and fiercest urban battles in modern warfare.
On the one hand, the Russians wanted to inflict the greatest possible damage on Ukrainians with brutal attacks and destruction, while on the other hand, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky assessed the battle for Bahmut as a matter of morale and resistance of Ukrainians in the defense of the country.
After the withdrawal of Wagner’s troops, Russia intensified its attacks with regular troops and on May 20, occupied most of the city, parallel to the withdrawal of the Ukrainian army.
Data on casualties and the number of dead soldiers are not sufficiently reliable, but independent estimates indicate at least 11,000 Ukrainian soldiers dead and at least 20-30,000 Russian soldiers killed, mostly members of Wagner.
