Bakhmut: Russians are on the verge of capturing key Ukrainian city. In
As we drove into the city in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on a warm sunny morning, men in orange vests tend to the roses. The tall trees shading the streets are thick with leaves.
Traffic is light because of fuel shortages, so many residents get around on bicycles.
This peaceful façade, however, is deceptive. Explosions regularly echo over Bakhmut: the blasts of outgoing and incoming artillery and rockets outside, and occasionally inside, the city.
Our first stop was a municipal building where volunteers were handing out bread. With cooking gas no longer available, bakeries have stopped working. Every day a truck arrives after a 10-hour journey with 10,000 loaves of bread, handed out free — two loaves per person.
Lyilya has brought her two grandchildren to pick up bread. “We support them,” she says, explaining what she does to keep their minds at ease. “We tell them there are some guys playing with tanks. What else can I tell them? How can I damage their mental health? You can’t do that. It’s impossible.”
Just as the last words come out of her mouth the air shakes with multiple blasts. She turns to her grandchildren with gentle words of reassurance.
On a nearby forested hill, thin threads of black smoke curl into the sky where the blasts came from — most likely a Ukrainian rocket launcher.
No one flinches. No one runs for cover.
Tetyana volunteers with the bread distribution. A stocky woman with an easy smile, she exchanges pleasantries as she hands out the bread.
When I ask if she intends to stay in Bakhmut if Russian forces push closer, her demeanor changes. She shakes her head.
“We love our town. Our graves are here. Our parents lived her. We won’t go anywhere,” she insists, her voice quivering. Tears well up in her eyes. “It’s our land. We won’t give it up to anyone. Even if it’s destroyed, we’ll rebuild. Everything will be…” and here she gives two thumbs up.
Ukrainian officials have said most of Severodonetsk is now under Russian control and that Moscow plans to isolate it in the coming days. Overnight Russian forces destroyed the second of three bridges between the two cities and is heavily shelling the third. Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk region military administration, said Sunday, “As I understand they want to completely cut off Severodonetsk and leave it without any chance to evacuate people or bring in any munition or assistance.”
Hayday says he expects the Russians to “throw all their reserves to seize the city,” and said it’s possible they will cut off and seize the main highway into the city. If that city and Lysychansk fall, Bakhmut, it is feared, will be next.
Unlike in some other parts of the country, there is no sense here in the east that the worst of this war is over. Russian forces have made…
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