Bakhmut city ‘destroyed’ as Russia presses ahead in eastern Ukraine

Russian forces “destroyed” the eastern Ukrainian city of Bahmut, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, while the Ukrainian military reported missile, rocket and air strikes on various parts of the country.

The latest battles in Russia’s nine-and-a-half-month war in Ukraine have centered on four provinces that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally claimed to annex in late September.

The fighting demonstrates Moscow’s struggle to establish control of the region and Ukraine’s determination to reclaim them.

The situation in several front-line cities in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces “remains very difficult,” Zelensky said.

“Bakhmut, Soledar, Maryinka, Kreminna. For a long time there is not a single spot in the land of these regions that has not been damaged by shells and fire,” Mr Zelensky said in his nighttime video address.

“The occupiers virtually destroyed Bakhmut, another Donbass city that Russian troops reduced to rubble.”

He did not specify what he meant by “destroyed”, with some buildings still standing and residents visible on city streets.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported missile strikes, about 20 airstrikes and more than 60 rocket attacks across Ukraine between Friday and Saturday.

Spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun said the most active fighting took place in the Bakhmut area, where more than 20 populated places were attacked.

Russia launched a heavy offensive in the east and managed to capture almost all of Luhansk during the summer. Donetsk has avoided the same fate, with analysts and Ukrainian officials saying the Russian military has poured manpower and resources around Bakhmut in recent weeks in an attempt to encircle the city.

Fighting over Bakhmut has intensified after Ukrainian troops recaptured the southern city of Kherson nearly a month ago, suggesting Putin wants clear results after weeks of apparent setbacks.

Seizing Bakhmut would cut off Ukrainian supply lines and open up a route for Russian forces to Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, the main Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk.

Russia has been attacking Bakhmut with rockets for more than half a year. The ground attack accelerated after its forces forced the Ukrainians out of Lugansk in July.

But some analysts have questioned the strategic logic of Russia’s relentless pursuit to seize Bakhmut and surrounding areas.

On Friday, Putin lashed out at recent comments by former German chancellor Angela Merkel, who said the 2015 peace deal between France and Germany in eastern Ukraine bought Ukraine time to prepare for a new peace agreement this year. Prepare for war with Russia.

The agreement is aimed at reducing tensions after pro-Russian separatists seized territory in the Donbass a year ago, sparking a war with Ukrainian forces that escalated into war with Russia itself after the Feb. 24 invasion.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian military also reported airstrikes in other provinces: Kharkov and Sumy in the northeast, Dnepropetrovsk in central Ukraine, Zaporozhya in the southeast and Kherson in the south.

The latter two, along with Donetsk and Luhansk, are four regions that Mr Putin claims are now part of Russian territory.

In Odessa, a key port city on the western Black Sea, drone strikes knocked out power to much of the region overnight, local government head Maxim Marchenko said.