Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Russian forces weren't occupying Bakhmut, casting doubt on Moscow's claims that the eastern Ukrainian city has fallen.
In this photo released by the Press and Media Bureau of the Indonesian Presidential Palace, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, second right, talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, third left, during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Sunday, May 21, 2023. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russian forces weren't occupying Bakhmut, casting doubt on Moscow's insistence that the eastern Ukrainian city had fallen.
“The enemy failed to surround Bakhmut, and they lost part of the dominant heights around the city,” Malyar said. “That is, the advance of our troops in the suburbs along the flanks, which is still ongoing, greatly complicates the enemy’s presence in Bakhmut.” It was only the latest flip-flopping of the situation in Bakhmut after eight months of intense fighting.
The Russian capture of the last remaining ground in Bakhmut is “not tactically or operationally significant,” a Washington-based think tank said late Saturday. The Institute for the Study of War said that taking control of these areas “does not grant Russian forces operationally significant terrain to continue conducting offensive operations,” nor to “to defend against possible Ukrainian counterattacks.
Zelenskyy underlined the importance of defending Bakhmut in an interview with The Associated Press in March, saying its fall could allow Russia to rally international support for a deal that might require Kyiv to make unacceptable compromises. When a separatist rebellion engulfed eastern Ukraine in 2014 weeks after Moscow’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the rebels quickly won control of the city, only to lose it a few months later.
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Zelenskyy denies Ukrainian city of Bakhmut occupied by Russian forcesUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces are not occupying Bakhmut. Zelenskyy's comments on Sunday at the Group of Seven summit in Japan cast doubt on claims that the Ukrainian city has fallen. Zelenskyy said: “Bakhmut is not occupied by the Russian Federation as of today.” The fog of war made it impossible to confirm the situation on the ground in the invasion’s longest battle, and a series of comments from Ukrainian and Russian officials added confusion to the matter. Zelenskyy’s response in English to a question earlier at the summit about the status of Bakhmut was interpreted by many as saying the city had fallen to Russian forces.
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