Ukrainian soldiers say they see signs that Russia’s Wagner mercenaries are pulling back and turning over defense of the recently captured city to regular Russian forces.
From the edges of Kostyantynivka, about 12 miles west of Bakhmut, which Russia captured a week ago, soldiers from Ukraine’s 24th Separate Assault Battalion pounded enemy trenches on the city’s southern flank with artillery fired from an old Soviet D30 howitzer on Saturday.
After declaring Bakhmut fully under Russian control, Prigozhin quickly announced his forces would leave beginning on Thursday, but his motivations and true plans have been difficult to discern. Theoretically, that plan would allow them to eventually retake the city, in part by forcing the occupying Russians to withstand artillery fire from higher ground. But even some Ukrainian soldiers are not convinced the plan is real.The effective loss of Bakhmut made little practical difference for this artillery unit, which has used a small former farmhouse to direct its strikes on Russian-occupied territory for months.“We’ve been in Bakhmut for almost a year. We know every tree, every field.
The 24th Separate Assault Battalion was first formed as a volunteer force during the fighting with Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and is now part of the 53 Mechanized Brigade. It recently completed a 10-day assault on Russian-held positions around Bakhmut that was exhausting even measured against the normal fighting here, which is typically relentless.
“Everyone is having a hard time, but we’re not letting our heads hang,” Dexter said, speaking over the sound of frequent outgoing fire.During a visit to a separate medical site in Kostyantynivka, three shells whizzed over the heads of a Washington Post reporting team in the space of 20 minutes. A medic, who wore no protection and regularly treated patients in a flimsy house with no hard cover, did not flinch.
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