- The Russian military and its Wagner Group allies have been pushing to capture the city of Bakhmut for months at high cost.
- Former Ukrainian defense minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk told Newsweek that the Russians appear unsettled by their failure.
- The acting head of the Russian-puppet Donetsk People's Republic claims that the Russians have created "unbearable conditions" for Ukrainian troops in the area.
A former Ukrainian defense minister has said that the Russian military and its mercenary colleagues are "panicking" over their failure—so far—to seize the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has for months been at the center of Moscow's grinding and costly eastern push.
Weeks ago, a Ukrainian withdrawal from Bakhmut seemed imminent. But in recent days, the Ukrainian military and Western analysts have reported a reduced tempo of Russian attacks around Bakhmut with a new focus on the city of Adiivka to the south; another recent hotspot of Russian assaults.
Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has even warned that under-supplied and exhausted Russian and mercenary units around Bakhmut may be vulnerable to Ukrainian counterattacks.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, who served as Ukraine's defense minister from 2019 to 2020 and is now an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky's government, told Newsweek it would be premature to declare whether Kyiv's controversial decision to stay and fight in Bakhmut—a city that Ukrainian and Western officials repeatedly said holds little strategic value—was the right call.
"It is too early to speak about victory in Bakhmut for Ukraine," Zagorodnyuk said. "But it is certainly demonstrating an inability for Russians to reach their victory."
"It partly explains the decision of Ukrainian leadership," the former defense minister said. "They are the only ones who are in Bakhmut, while critics usually have been very far from it. It once again underlines importance of having some trust in Ukraine commanders, who have better local understanding of the operational environment."
As for the Russians around Bakhmut, Zagorodnyuk said, "they are panicking because they see they cannot even achieve that technically minor goal."
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.
Russian forces are slowly encroaching into the city and around its northern and southern flanks, but at enormous cost. Western and Ukrainian military officials say Moscow has incurred tens of thousands of casualties trying to seize the small industrial city, which could be used as a springboard for assaults on the more significant Donbas cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.
The Institute for the Study of War said this week that Russian forces appear to be shifting focus away from Bakhmut and towards Adiivka to the south, in the suburbs of the city of Donetsk held by Russian forces since 2014.
The ISW said commanders have committed "limited higher quality Wagner Group elements" to its Avdiivka attacks, "potentially to reinforce recent limited tactical successes in the area."
Denis Pushilin, the acting head of the puppet Donetsk People's Republic—established by Russian security services and their collaborates after Russia's invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014—told Russian television on Tuesday that Russian forces, along with Wagner Group mercenaries, had created "unbearable conditions for the enemy" in the Bakhmut area.
Russian and Wagner forces are "confidently" progressing in their attacks, Pushilin claimed—as quoted by the state-run Tass news agency—and said all roads out of the city were under fire by Russian units.
