“This is the toughest operation I have ever seen in my life. The enemy has launched its strongest assault on Bakhmut. We have never seen troops like this before,” the Ukrainian commander tells us.
Commander Skala, as he wants to be called, is monitoring the Ukrainian operation to defend the town of Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region from an underground chamber in a nondescript street.
It is one of the main command centers that the Ukrainian army has established in the city and few journalists have been here.
A tall, stocky man with bright eyes, he watches on a large screen in the center of the room a live feed of a drone hovering outside the eastern edge of the city.
One of the battalion units is trying to detect the location of the Russian positions, to help another unit that has just come out to defend the eastern entrances to Bakhmut, which are under attack.
In addition to the Russian armed forces, thousands of mercenaries from the private paramilitary group Wagner they have been sent to the Bakhmut front.
“Wagner’s soldiers are openly advancing under fire towards us, even if their bodies are scattered on the ground, even if out of 60 people in their platoon only 20 remain. It is very difficult to resist such an invasion. We were not prepared for that, and now we are learning,” says Commander Skala.
“A few weeks ago, we lost positions on the eastern approaches to the city because the enemy was constantly attacking us. We moved to the secondary front lines to save our soldiers, ”he adds.
“We are trying to work smart and get those positions back. Sometimes you have to retreat to attack the enemy properly.”
Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has said that the Ukrainians turned every house in Bakhmut into a fortress and that there are now “500 lines of defense.”
strategic
Russia has been using all its power to try to take Bakhmut, a battle seen as critical for the country after it lost ground in Ukraine in recent months, when it was driven out of Kherson in the south and the Kharkiv region in the northeast.
The seizure of Bakhmut is also important in furthering Russia’s goal of controlling the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
Throughout our conversation with Commander Skala, muffled explosions can be heard on the surface.
By the time you step outside, the sound is loud enough to make your heart pound: the terrifying whoosh of flying shells followed by the deafening crash of impact.
And the sound never stops As the bombs keep falling
One resident described it as “the end of the world” and there are times when it feels like that.
Bombs tore through apartment blocks, blew off building facades and created craters on the sides of streets. It was difficult to find a window in Bakhmut that was intact. The ground is littered with broken glass and debris.
This was once a quiet and ordinary town in the east, known for its sparkling wine. Now, it has become synonymous with Ukraine’s war and resistance.
It sits at a vital road junction, but over the months the battle here has taken on symbolic importance.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently called it the “fortress of our morale.”
bombs every day
Bakhmut used to be home to just over 70,000 people before the war. Only a tenth of its residents remain, mostly elderly or poor.
While the streets are largely empty, we see dozens of civilians at an aid center, known here as the “resilience center”.
It has electricity and wifi provided by Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system. Volunteers distribute small packages of food, medicine and other basic supplies. A wood stove in the center keeps the room warm.
This is a lifeline for the Bakhmut people.
Many sit huddled around power points, trying to charge their phones.
What is remarkable is that even when the shells fall a few hundred meters from the center, people do not flinch. It’s like they’ve gone numb, running from the bombs every day.
However, the trauma is visible on many faces.
Why don’t you go, we asked Anatolay Suschenko, who was queuing up to get some food.
“I have nowhere to go. I am alone. Who would want to take an 86-year-old?” she says. “Here, at least sometimes, when soldiers throw food or soup, I find it and eat it. And I get free bread. In all my life, I had never seen anything like it. All the windows in my house were blown out, and the door was destroyed.”
People have different reasons for staying. Olha Tupikova is sitting in a corner of her room with her 13-year-old daughter Diana.
“I think that everywhere in Ukraine is equally dangerous. Some of our neighbors left and died in other places. Here we have a house. We have cats and dogs. We cannot leave them,” she asserts.
“Our roof has 21 holes and the garage has nine. I repair them and try to fix the windows too. Normally the holes are caused by shrapnel, but lately we have also had flying stones, which make holes the size of a head.
“We live like mice. We quickly left for bread, we chose different routes to return home. Before dawn I look for planks of wood and logs [para reparar mi casa]. At night I look for water because there is no water supply in the city,” says Olha.
“Of course, it is terrifying. But now we do it military style, like soldiers. We joke that chefs don’t know anything about cooking [en comparación con nosotros]. We can make a meal out of anything on an open fire, or even a candle.”
local administration he is trying to convince people to leave.
In a place in the city that we cannot disclose because it could compromise his security, we meet Oleksiy Reva, who has been the mayor of Bakhmut for 33 years.
“It’s the ones who don’t have money and don’t want to face the unknown who stay. But we are talking about that. Because security is the most important thing, security and peace, ”he said.
Why does he keep staying, we ask. “This is my life, my job, my destiny. I was born here and I grew up here. My parents are buried here. My conscience will not allow me to leave our people. And I am confident that our army will not allow Bakhmut to fall, ”he says.
In the fields outside the city, we see the routine that is required to maintain it.
The unit of soldiers we meet tries to spot Russian locations and fire artillery (Soviet-era D-30 guns) in their direction, to allow the Ukrainian infantry to advance each day. But it barely progresses.
“The equipment is outdated. It works fine and gets the job done, but it can be better. We also have to be very economical with our shells, very precise with our targets so as not to run out of ammunition. If we had more equipment and modern weapons, we could destroy more targets, which would make things much easier for our infantry,” says one of the soldiers, Valentyn.
Winter also makes things difficult. Guns don’t work as well when it’s cold, we’re told.
“We just need to get through this period, hold on, and then run counteroffensives and fight back,” Yaroslav said.
Each side is trying to wear down the other. This is a battle of resistance.
How do you motivate yourself every day? we asked him. “We all have families to return to. Valentyn just had a son, but his family is in Germany, so he hasn’t seen him yet, ”says Yaroslav as Valentyn smiles sheepishly.
“His motivation is enormous.”
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