Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu visits Mariupol on Monday, March 6. The settlements of Avdiivka and Kurakhove also sustained damage. In the hotly contested area around Vuhledar, one person was wounded when the town came under Russian fire. Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk region military administration, said one person was killed and three wounded in Bakhmut.Ī Russian missile strike on the nearby city of Kramatorsk destroyed a school, but preliminary information suggests there were no casualties, he added. Officials in the Donetsk region say Russian artillery and missile fire continues to inflict damage on many settlements. The deputy mayor said the main southern route into Bakhmut from Ivanivske is harder to use because another bridge has been destroyed.Īn embedded Russian war correspondent, Evgeny Poddubny, claimed that some Ukrainian forces have begun retreating from Bakhmut. On Monday, two Bakhmut officials outside the city, including the deputy mayor, told CNN that military engineers have erected a temporary metal bridge to replace one that was destroyed late last week on the northern supply route into Bakhmut from Chasiv Yar. However, as yet, Russian forces do not appear to have crossed the Bakhmutka River - which runs along the eastern outskirts of the city - into central Bakhmut. The ISW said "Ukrainian forces are unlikely to withdraw from Bakhmut all at once and may pursue a gradual fighting withdrawal to exhaust Russian forces through continued urban warfare." "Ukrainian forces are unlikely to withdraw from Bakhmut all at once and may pursue a gradual fighting withdrawal to exhaust Russian forces through continued urban warfare," added the ISW. On Sunday, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that geolocated video footage suggests that "Wagner Group forces continued to make advances in northeastern Bakhmut and advanced near the Stupky railway station," which is north of the city. Some context: Intense fighting is raging around Bakhmut and analysts say that Russian forces are making gradual gains as they seek to encircle Ukrainian units. "And those troops are very quickly meeting their demise." "What I do see is the Russians continuing to pour in a lot of ill-trained and ill-equipped troops," said Austin. I think it will continue to be contested," he added. "So the fall of Bakhmut won’t necessarily mean that the Russians have changed the tide of this fight. "I certainly don’t want to discount the tremendous work that the Ukrainian soldiers and leaders have put into defending Bakhmut, but I think its more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value," said Austin during a visit to Amman, Jordan.
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