Reuters
Ukraine clings to Bakhmut as Russia pounds front lines
Kyiv and the West say the smashed city has only symbolic importance.
April 11, 2023
Fighting raged in the frontline cities in eastern Ukraine Tuesday, as Russian forces launched airstrikes and artillery attacks.
Footage from a Ukrainian soldier’s bodycam video, released by the border service, showed fighters launching rocket-propelled grenades and shooting rifles in the destroyed yard of a house, purported to be in the besieged city of Bakhmut.
Ukrainian officials said its forces repelled dozens of attacks, as the Russian military kept up its effort to take control of Bakhmut.
The battle for the small city – now largely ruined – on the edge of Russian-controlled territory in Donetsk has been the bloodiest of the war, as Moscow tries to revive its campaign after recent setbacks.
Both sides have suffered heavy casualties in the Bakhmut fighting.
Near the frontline, under the cover of darkness, medical volunteers loaded wounded soldiers into a bus converted into an ambulance to bring them to a hospital in the city of Dnipro.
Mariia, a 23-year-old volunteer paramedic, told Reuters that during a two-week rotation she and her team evacuated hundreds of wounded soldiers.
“This bus has been operational for around two months, so we evacuated nearly 600 people. This bus makes a whole difference as it saves people’s lives.”
Tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed and wounded on both sides of the conflict since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.
The ambulance effort involves rotating teams of volunteers who spend several weeks on call, ready when injured soldiers need transport from the frontline.
Both trained medics and volunteers without a medical background serve.
“It is very important for me because I have a connection to what we are doing. I work in the field which I know and where I am confident that I will do my best. Each of us has a mission and this is my mission.”
Donetsk is one of four provinces in eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia declared annexed last year and is seeking to fully occupy.
Last week, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said troops could be withdrawn from Bakhmut if they ran the risk of being encircled.
Kyiv and the West say the smashed city has only symbolic importance.