KYIV: Ukrainian soldiers were still engaging Russian forces in fierce battles in and around Bakhmut on Sunday, military officials said, hours after Moscow and the private army Wagner announced that their troops had taken full control of the eastern city.
The fog of war made it impossible to confirm the situation on the ground in the invasion’s longest battle, and a series of comments from Ukrainian and Russian officials added confusion to the matter.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minsiter Hanna Malyar even went so far as to say that Ukrainian troops “took the city in a semi-encirclement.”
“The enemy failed to surround Bakhmut, and they lost part of the dominant heights around the city,” Malyar said. “That is, the advance of our troops in the suburbs along the flanks, which is still ongoing, greatly complicates the enemy’s presence in Bakhmut.”
Her comments came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, at the Group of Seven summit in Japan, appeared to suggest that Bakhmut had fallen.
When asked if the city was in Ukraine’s hands, Zelensky said: “I think no, but you have to — to understand that there is nothing, They’ve destroyed everything. There are no buildings. It’s a pity. It’s tragedy.”
Zelensky’s press secretary later walked back those comments.
And the spokesman for Ukraine’s Eastern Group of Forces, Serhii Cherevaty, said that the Ukrainian military is managing to hold positions in the vicinity of Bakhmut.
“The president correctly said that the city has, in fact, been razed to the ground. The enemy is being destroyed every day by massive artillery and aviation strikes, and our units report that the situation is extremely difficult.
“Our military keep fortifications and several premises in the southwestern part of the city. Heavy fighting is underway,” he said.
It was only the latest flip-flopping of the situation in Bakhmut after eight months of intense fighting.
Only hours earlier, Russian state new agencies reported that President Vladimir Putin congratulated “Wagner assault detachments, as well as all servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces units, who provided them with the necessary support and flank protection, on the completion of the operation to liberate Artyomovsk,” which is Bakhmut’s Soviet-era name.
Russia’s Defense Ministry also said that Wagner and military units “completed the liberation” of Bakhmut.
At the G-7 in Japan, Zelensky stood side by side with US President Joe Biden during a news conference. Biden announced $375 million more in aid for Ukraine, which included more ammunition, artillery and vehicles.
“I thanked him for the significant financial assistance to (Ukraine) from (the US),” Zelensky tweeted later.
The new pledge came after the US agreed to allow training on American-made F-16 fighter jets, laying the groundwork for their eventual transfer to Ukraine. Biden said Sunday that Zelensky had given the US a “flat assurance” that Ukraine wouldn’t use the F-16s jets to attack Russian territory.
Many analysts say that even if Russia was victorious in Bakhmut, it was unlikely to turn the tide in the war.
The Russian capture of the last remaining ground in Bakhmut is “not tactically or operationally significant,” a Washington-based think tank said late Saturday. The Institute for the Study of War said that taking control of these areas “does not grant Russian forces operationally significant terrain to continue conducting offensive operations,” nor to “to defend against possible Ukrainian counterattacks.”
In a video posted on Telegram, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said the city came under complete Russian control at about midday Saturday. He spoke surrounded by about a half-dozen fighters, with ruined buildings in the background and explosions heard in the distance.
Russian forces still seek to seize the remaining part of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control, including several heavily fortified areas.
It isn’t clear which side has paid a higher price in the battle for Bakhmut. Both Russia and Ukraine have endured losses believed to be in the thousands, though neither has disclosed casualty numbers.
Zelensky underlined the importance of defending Bakhmut in an interview with The Associated Press in March, saying its fall could allow Russia to rally international support for a deal that might require Kyiv to make unacceptable compromises.
Analysts have said Bakhmut’s fall would be a blow to Ukraine and give some tactical advantages to Russia but wouldn’t prove decisive to the outcome of the war.
Bakhmut, located about 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk, had a prewar population of 80,000 and was an important industrial center, surrounded by salt and gypsum mines.
The city, which was named Artyomovsk after a Bolshevik revolutionary when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, also was known for its sparkling wine production in underground caves. Its broad tree-lined avenues, lush parks and stately downtown with imposing late 19th-century mansions — all now reduced to a smoldering wasteland — made it a popular tourist destination.
When a separatist rebellion engulfed eastern Ukraine in 2014 weeks after Moscow’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the rebels quickly won control of the city, only to lose it a few months later.
After Russia switched its focus to the Donbas following a botched attempt to seize Kyiv early in the February 2022 invasion, Moscow’s troops tried to take Bakhmut in August but were pushed back.
The fighting there abated in autumn as Russia was confronted with Ukrainian counteroffensives in the east and the south, but it resumed at full pace late last year. In January, Russia captured the salt-mining town of Soledar, just north of Bakhmut, and closed in on the city’s suburbs.
Intense Russian shelling targeted the city and nearby villages as Moscow waged a three-sided assault to try to finish off the resistance in what Ukrainians called “fortress Bakhmut.”
Mercenaries from Wagner spearheaded the Russian offensive. Prigozhin tried to use the battle for the city to expand his clout amid the tensions with the top Russian military leaders whom he harshly criticized.
“We fought not only with the Ukrainian armed forces in Bakhmut. We fought the Russian bureaucracy, which threw sand in the wheels,” Prigozhin said in the video on Saturday.
The relentless Russian artillery bombardment left few buildings intact amid ferocious house-to-house battles. Wagner fighters “marched on the bodies of their own soldiers” according to Ukrainian officials. Both sides have spent ammunition at a rate unseen in any armed conflict for decades, firing thousands of rounds a day.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has said that seizing the city would allow Russia to press its offensive farther into the Donetsk region, one of the four Ukrainian provinces that Moscow illegally annexed in September.
Ukraine says troops still engaging Russian forces in Bakhmut after Moscow announces victory in city
https://arab.news/zkjyh
Ukraine says troops still engaging Russian forces in Bakhmut after Moscow announces victory in city
- Russia claimed on Saturday to have fully captured the smashed eastern Ukrainian city, which if true would mark an end to the longest and bloodiest battle of the 15-month war
Germany indicts Turkish national for spying on alleged Gulen activists
BERLIN: German federal prosecutors on Friday said they had indicted a Turkish national for alleged spying on individuals that he associated with cleric Fethullah Gulen.
The suspect, who is not in jail and was only identified as Mehmet K., in line with German privacy laws, contacted Turkiye’s police and intelligence service via anonymous letters, prosecutors added.
Gulen built a powerful Islamic movement in Turkiye and beyond, but spent his later years in the US mired in accusations of orchestrating an attempted coup against Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan.
Gulen died last month.
At least 15 dead, 113 missing, in Uganda landslides
- Landslides late on Wednesday hit the village of Masugu in the eastern Bulambuli district, about five hours from the capital, Kampala
- Images on local media showed huge swathes of fallen earth covering the land
KAMPALA: Landslides that hit several villages in eastern Uganda killed 15 people and left more than 100 unaccounted for, police said Thursday.
The East African country has been deluged by heavy rains in past days, with the government issuing a national disaster alert after reports of flooding and landslides.
Landslides late on Wednesday hit the village of Masugu in the eastern Bulambuli district, about five hours from the capital, Kampala.
Images on local media showed huge swathes of fallen earth covering the land.
“A total of 15 bodies have been retrieved,” the Ugandan police said in a statement posted on X, adding that another 15 people had been taken to hospital.
“Unfortunately, 113 people are still missing, but efforts are underway to locate them,” it said.
The statement said five villages — Masugu, Namachele, Natola, Namagugu, and Tagalu — had been impacted.
Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja told NBS television that they “believe” all the missing were presumed dead.
“We are trying to exhume the bodies of those missing people,” she said, adding that at least 19 people had been injured, two of them in critical condition.
District commissioner Faheera Mpalanyi said early Thursday that six bodies, including a baby, had been recovered so far from Masugu village.
“Given the devastation and the size of the area affected and from what the affected families are telling us, several people are missing and probably buried in the debris,” she said.
Ugandan Red Cross spokesperson Irene Nakasiita said on X that 15 bodies had been recovered, including seven children.
Some 45 homes had been “completely buried,” she added.
Police said rescue operations were being hindered by impassable roads, blocking ambulances and rescue vehicles from reaching the scene.
A Uganda Red Cross video showed a huddle of people desperately digging through earth as women wailed in the background.
Some 500 soldiers had been deployed to help with the rescue but only 120 had managed to reach the villages, Nabbanja said.
The scale of the multiple landslides was unclear.
Videos and photographs shared on social media purported to show people digging for survivors in Kimono village, also located in the Bulambuli district.
The Ugandan prime minister’s office issued an alert, writing on X: “Heavy rains on Wednesday in parts of Uganda have led to disaster situations in many areas.”
The rains caused flooding in the northwest after a tributary of the Nile River burst its banks.
Emergency teams were deployed to rescue stranded motorists.
A major road connecting the country with South Sudan was obstructed late on Wednesday, with emergency boat crews deployed near the town of Pakwach.
“Unfortunately, one of the boats capsized, resulting in the death of one engineer,” Uganda’s defense forces said on X.
The deadliest landslide in Africa ravaged Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown in August 2017, when 1,141 people perished.
Mudslides in the Mount Elgon region of eastern Uganda killed more than 350 people in February 2010.
Earlier this year, more than 30 people died in Kampala after a massive rubbish landslide.
Dozens feared dead in Nigeria boat accident
- Rescue operations were currently underway, but the exact number of fatalities was unknown
ABUJA: Dozens of people were feared dead after a boat capsized on the Niger River in central Nigeria, a waterways agency spokesperson said on Friday.
National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) spokesperson Makama Suleiman said the boat was carrying mostly traders from Missa community in the central Kogi state heading to a weekly market in the neighboring Niger state.
Suleiman said that rescue operations were currently underway, but the exact number of fatalities was unknown.
None of the passengers were wearing life jackets, which significantly increased the risk of fatalities, he said.
UK spy chief says Russia behind ‘staggeringly reckless’ sabotage in Europe
- Richard Moore, head of MI6, said: “We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe”
- “If Putin succeeds China would weigh the implications, North Korea would be emboldened and Iran would become still more dangerous“
PARIS: Britain’s foreign spy chief accused Russia on Friday of waging a “staggeringly reckless campaign” of sabotage in Europe while also stepping up its nuclear sabre-rattling to scare other countries off from backing Ukraine.
Richard Moore, head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6, said that any softening in support for Ukraine against Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion would embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies.
In what appeared a message to incoming US President Donald Trump’s administration and some European allies that have questioned continued support for Ukraine in the grinding war, Moore argued that Europe and its transatlantic partners must hold firm in the face of what he said was growing aggression.
“We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe, even as Putin and his acolytes resort to nuclear sabre-rattling to sow fear about the consequences of aiding Ukraine,” he said in a speech in Paris.
“The cost of supporting Ukraine is well known but the cost of not doing so would be infinitely higher. If Putin succeeds China would weigh the implications, North Korea would be emboldened and Iran would become still more dangerous.”
In September, Moore said Russia’s intelligence services had gone “a bit feral” in the latest warning by NATO and other Western spy chiefs about what they call hostile Russian actions, ranging from repeated cyberattacks to Moscow-linked arson.
Moscow has denied responsibility for all such incidents. The Russian embassy in London did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Moore’s remarks.
Last month the UK’s domestic spy chief said Russia’s GRU military intelligence service was seeking to cause “mayhem.” Sources familiar with US intelligence have told Reuters Moscow is likely to step up its campaign against European targets to increase pressure on the West over its support for Kyiv.
LOOKING FORWARD TO TRUMP
Much of Moore’s speech was focused on the importance of Western solidarity, saying the collective strength of Britain’s allies would outmatch Putin who, he said, was becoming increasingly in hock to China, North Korea and Iran.
Trump, who has vowed to quickly end the war in Ukraine, without saying how, and other Republicans in the US have expressed reservations about Washington’s strong strategic support and heavy weapons supplies for Kyiv.
“If Putin is allowed to succeed in reducing Ukraine to a vassal state he will not stop there. Our security — British, French, European and transatlantic — will be jeopardized,” Moore said.
In general terms, Moore said the world was in its most dangerous state in his 37 years working in the intelligence world, with Daesh on the rise again, Iran’s nuclear ambitions a continued threat, and the radicalising impact of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel not yet fully known.
Nicolas Lerner, head of France’s foreign spy agency DGSE, said French and UK intelligence were working closely together “to face what is undoubtedly one of the threats — if not the threat — in my opinion, the possible atomic proliferation in Iran.” Iran has repeatedly denied seeking nuclear weapons.
Israeli military to remain in Gaza for years, minister says
LONDON: Israel’s food minister, Avi Dichter, said that the Israeli military would remain in Gaza for many years to fight against Hamas recruits, the British national daily The Guardian reported on Friday.
“I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time. I think most people understand that (Israel) will be years in some kind of West Bank situation where you go in and out and maybe you remain along Netzarim (corridor),” Dichter said.
Israeli reservists who recently served in Gaza described to The Guardian the scale of the new military infrastructure built in the territory by Israel. This includes extensive new camps and roads across a swath of northern and central Gaza.
A demobilized officer said that he had spent days demolishing houses in Gaza to clear more ground for military bases in Gaza’s Netzarim corridor.
“That was the only mission. There was not a single construction left that was taller than my waist anywhere (in the corridor), except our bases and observation towers,” he said.
Israeli military strikes killed at least 21 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said, as tanks pushed deeper into the north and south of the territory.
The escalation came a day after Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah began a ceasefire in Lebanon, halting more than a year of hostilities and raising hopes among many Palestinians in Gaza for a similar deal with Hamas, which ruled the territory from 2007 until the current conflict.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has repeatedly said that Hamas must be completely destroyed and Israel must retain lasting control over parts of Gaza.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,200 people and displaced nearly all the territory’s population at least once, Gaza officials say. Most victims are civilians.
