André, you have been walking between Chasiv Yar and Kramatorsk for the past few days. Chasiv Yar is a few kilometers from Maputo. What news are you getting about the current situation of the fighting in Baskhmut and how is the situation in Chasiv Yar?
Precisely. Chasiv Yar is about 15 kilometers from Bakhmut and has been the target of many attacks, that is, there are continuous shelling. It’s been quieter in recent days, oddly enough, but there are always rocket attacks, especially rockets, inflicting some destruction on the city. What the military tells us about the situation in Bakhmut is that it is not really improving. The combat has been quite difficult. There are quite a few losses on the Ukrainian side. Even a hospital very close to Chasiv Yar, where there is a medical stabilization point that collects the wounded and dead on the front line, even this hospital has been heavily attacked. We saw the facade and the entire front of the door completely destroyed. So the Russian forces know that there will be a hospital there. The combat has been very defined. There are border lines, that is, where the Ukrainian artillery can enter can keep that position safe. In addition, Chasiv Yar is also a very important city, because it has a much higher quota than Bakhmut, therefore it is at a high point and is ideal for placing artillery. As we have seen, 122 mm caliber T-30 guns that fire at positions previously defined by drones in Bakhmut.
Therefore, there are still some resistance points where the Ukrainians manage to hold the lines. That’s why we’ve seen great advances from the Wagner group in the city limits. In the center of the city it has been different. Because? Because the center has been almost like a militia war. And this, from what I understand, has been very difficult for the Ukrainians, because it is a type of warfare that is almost hand-to-hand. No more tactics. Or rather, the tactic is precisely to give body to the bullets and therefore this is also very complicated for the Ukrainians. They hold the city for military reasons and also for political reasons. I think that here, at the end of January, there was some doubt about whether the city would go after them or not. However, they defined that yes, what they are losing militarily is less than what they are gaining, so it will be essential to later be able to leverage for the counteroffensive in spring. At the moment, in terms of movement, it seems to me that on the outskirts of the city everything is very still, because the mud that we have around us is an impossible thing, that is, it is a mud of brutal viscosity and not even tanks. .. I have seen clogged tanks. They have to be towed by other vehicles, because it is very difficult to move. This is the situation that I think will continue for at least the next week.
Was that your car that I saw get towed through the mud?
Yes, that car is the car that I am using with a colleague of mine, a Polish photographer. And it’s an ’82 car. A Lada that tall, so it’s a rear-wheel drive car that’s been in the mud, I mean, recently. But despite all that, he kept walking and brought us home again. So these machines end up resisting, but that mud is impossible. We have to be towed. And it was precisely the army that towed us and also a Ukrainian TV crew, because cars that don’t have four-wheel drive really can’t move forward, especially on hills, because they start to skid.
Sasha, the Ukrainian soldier you spoke to who came from the front line in Bakhmut, and whom we can also hear on TSF.pt, is the example of the raised mural of the Ukrainian forces resisting there?
What is happening with Ukrainian morality? I must say that I have seen higher. The Ukrainians are trying to keep control, not to demoralize, not to “panic”, but I feel a certain regret that they are not used to so many people dying at the front, I would say. And that shows. That is to say, they smile less, their gaze is heavier, they smile less, they have the notion that they are not going to give up, far from it. If Bakhmut is to be saved, they are to be saved. That’s clear. But they don’t smile like a few months ago, I would say.
Is it possible to estimate how many civilians might still be inside Bakhmut?
About three days ago I had an exchange of messages with a Ukrainian military who told me that there will be about 600 people. I confess that I thought the number was quite small, but I can also say that many of the families I knew, who lived in the eastern part of the city, very close to the river, have been evacuated. Because? Because they were families with women, with young people, some as young as 18, and in the first contact they had with the Wagner group they clearly understood that things could go very wrong. I myself am dealing with an interview I did with them, because the stories are really quite difficult. In other words, we are talking about situations of harassment, attempted rape. Those people fled, that family fled on foot, walked eight miles overnight to get out of town. Therefore, on the Ukrainian side, there is not much organization for evacuations, as there was in the past. Now, since the city is in chaos, especially in that area by the river, there aren’t many possibilities. People have to do things for themselves. Now, there are only six hundred civilians left in the city, it is possible that it is a real number, because many people left, because the situation is really complicated. It’s a situation where you risk your life not every day, but every minute you go out.
Could the alleged relationship difficulties between the Wagner group and the Russian Defense Ministry command, from Sergei Shoigu to General Gerassimov, be hindering the Russian advance on Bakhmut? Is this something people talk about? But on the Ukrainian side, there have also been reports of the lack of support that the military on the front lines in that region feel from the rear and that may explain the lack of control you were talking about…
Yes, there are several points here. But precisely this rivalry or the speech of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner group, who complained about the lack of ammunition, that he was not supported by the Russian Federation, etc. Of course, this now makes it more difficult to advance on the ground, precisely because there is not as much ammunition as there was a week and a half ago, I would say, when Wagner’s group was firing wildly. In other words, all the advances we have seen were made at the cost of bloodshed and machine gun and artillery fire. So it was almost a desperate attempt to move on that worked, but it took its toll. Now, the troops are more stagnant. From the Ukrainian side, the feeling is that, as I understand it, there are 8,000 Ukrainian army soldiers in the city, which is a controlled effort. Ukraine realized that it could exploit this politically, that it could exploit this split between Prigozhin and the Kremlin. And therefore, I think, this is my reading, is that there is a political exploitation of this fragility here that may be causing casualties in the Russian army and in the Wagner group. And Ukraine is politically exploiting this rivalry, because clearly there is a problem here with several roosters in the cooperative and the Ukrainians have understood it. I think it took them about three weeks to make this change, but they clearly understood that politically this was very important to the message that was going to Russia.
On the Ukrainian side, as I was saying, it’s a controlled effort. There have been massive casualties in heavy military personnel. One of them was Dimitro, known as Da Vinci, who was part of the Lobos assault group, therefore, he was an unavoidable character in the Ukrainian army. Present at the funeral were President Zelensky, the commander-in-chief of the troops, Budanov of Espionage. So they were all in the same square at the funeral. So this is to reveal that, on the one hand, it’s a controlled effort. On the other hand, there are very important people in the Ukrainian army who are falling in Bakhmut after the decision to try to keep the city.
And where you are now, in Kramatorsk, how do you see what is happening on the front line? Do people somehow feel something like: “next is us”?
I don’t think so. I think that still… I mean, Kramatorsk has been hit by spot attacks, I mean, the second night I was here – we have an apartment that has a very wide view of the city – and I saw it go by at 04:00 4:30am ratchet on my window so I woke up to the noise and then saw the light. Therefore, it is a city that is attacked from time to time, that is, the tension is maintained (due to the attacks). The city is very, very deserted compared to what it used to be. There is not much of a military presence. Although when you go to the few cafes that are open with more hours, they are full of soldiers and journalists. Therefore, it is a city that happens to be the last safe city. Konstantinivka has been the most attacked. Therefore, I would say that Kramatorsk is still within what can be called a safe city in terms of war. But yesterday, for example, I remember hearing the sirens there a dozen times during the day. And it is like this, there is always something that falls, it can be a small rocket, but there is always some smoke in the distance. So it is safe in terms of war, but it is much less safe than kyiv or Lviv, for example.
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Source: TSF
