In Donetsk, gains or losses are measured in feet, not miles. So even if Russian fighters take Bakhmut, new Ukrainian defenses mean they will not get much farther.
ORIKHOVO-VASYLIVKA, Ukraine — The closest Ukrainian artillery position to the raging battle for Bakhmut is tucked into a leafless tree line about 13,000 feet from the enemy. The fighters here have been hanging on for weeks, lobbing 122mm shells at the Russians straining to encircle the city. If the Russians push even a bit closer, the Ukrainians will have to move their guns back simply to keep from firing over the enemy’s heads, the platoon leader said Tuesday.
Any Ukrainian fallback is likely to be limited, commanders in the region say. Even if Ukrainian troops give up on their ferocious defense of Bakhmut — a fight that has assumed more symbolic than strategic value, according to military experts — Russia lacks the trained troops and weaponry to rush headlong into the wider Donetsk region.
The 128th were brought in from Zaporizhzhia in December to help plug the line in Bakhmut because their 70 percent accuracy rate ranks them as some of deadliest artillery fighters in Ukraine.The units are training their fire on the lines around Bakhmut and the key M03 highway that is a major route in the area. The 128th would provide cover for any fallbacks along the road, an eventuality the fighters do not like to talk about.
Wagner fighters took the nearby salt mining town of Soledar in January, causing the 128th “to make a small shift to the side,” Rostyslav acknowledged. “We were just pulling out when they hit us,” said the fighter, Oleksi, 40, of an artillery strike just outside of Bakhmut.Many of those posted in this hottest of hot zones lie to their families. Tokarchyk, a pediatric orthopedist in civilian life, tells his wife he is working at a hospital far from the front.They have already identified a location a bit farther back, one with good road access. It will take two or three days to set up the new site.
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