Despite the Russians levelling much of the city and attacking it relentlessly for months, Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region, is still in Ukrainian hands. But does the fight say more about Vladimir Putin's political position than his country's success on the battlefield?
On Tuesday, the Wagner Group's Yevgeny Prigozhin's discussion of struggles to break through Ukrainian lines around the city were shared by state media.So why is Bakhmut so important to Russia?"Bakhmut is not a significant military target", he says.But set in the context of the wider Russian effort to capture all of the Donbas, Bakhmut is part of a pocket of territory still controlled by Ukrainian forces that has been a"thorn in the side of Putin", Mr Bell added.
On Tuesday, the department said that it is"unlikely" that Kremlin forces will achieve a significant breakthrough near Bakhmut in the coming weeks.Much of Moscow's offensives around the city are manned by Wagner Group mercenaries, including huge numbers of convicts who have been taken from Russian prisons.
"He's not a military expert. So Bakhmut suddenly becomes not about the military significance, it's all about the political significance and Putin telling him and the battle between them about power and legacy. "What the Ukrainians have been doing is surgically striking their resupply, surgically striking where their leadership is, surgically striking their bomb dumps."
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