Ukrainian forces clung to their positions in Bakhmut on Sunday, fiercely resisting a Russian push to encircle the city in the eastern Donetsk region and prolonging a fight that has become a symbol of Ukraine’s battlefield defiance.
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials in recent days have described their grip on Bakhmut, a small industrial city, as increasingly tenuous, suggesting they may need to withdraw to prevent their troops from being trapped by Russian fighters advancing on three sides.
Nonetheless, the fight for the city has taken on enormous symbolic value in Kyiv and Moscow, with the Wagner chief, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, seeking to claim a victory for the Kremlin after Russia’s regular military suffered a string of defeats, first in its attempt to capture Kyiv, and then in Ukrainian counteroffensives in the northeast Kharkiv and southern Kherson regions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in turn, has elevated the importance of Bakhmut, calling it “the fortress of our morale,” and celebrating the troops defending it. Among Ukrainians, “Bakhmut stands” has become a rallying cry.For Russian President Vladimir Putin, capturing Bakhmut would deliver a needed victory and illustrate progress toward imposing Kremlin control of four eastern regions that the Russian leader has illegally declared as annexed.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has recently described the effort to seize the four regions — Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — as a matter of upholding the Russian constitution, which was amended to declare the Ukrainian territory as belonging to Russia.
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