LAST UPDATE | 21 May 2023

UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR Zelenskyy has denied confirming the loss of Bakhmut to the Russians. 

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s spokesman today denied the Ukrainian president had confirmed the fall of Bakhmut to Russian troops in comments on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Japan.

“The president denied the capture of Bakhmut,” spokesman Sergiy Nykyforov said on Facebook. When asked if Bakhmut was still in Ukraine’s hands, after Moscow announced its capture Zelensky had replied, “I think no.”

It was widely reported that Zelenskyy appeared to confirm that Russia has taken control of Bakhmut this morning, as when asked if Ukrainian forces were holding on or if Russia had captured the city, Zelenskyy was not entirely clear, but said “you have to understand there is nothing” there.

“For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts,” he added. 

Since then, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister has said that Ukrainian troops have “semi-encircled” Bakhmut and will make a Russian presence there “very difficult”. 

“The advance of our troops in the suburbs on the flanks, which is still ongoing, makes it very difficult for the enemy to be in Bakhmut. Our troops have semi-encircled the city,” Ganna Malyar said on social media, adding that Ukrainian troops were still in control of some parts of Bakhmut.

The Russian military announced yesterday the capture of the city, which had turned into the bloodiest battle of the war.

Its loss would be hugely symbolic for the Ukrainians, who held on for months there, ignoring US advice behind the scenes to put their focus elsewhere given the city’s lack of strategic importance in the wider war.

Zelenskyy, sitting this morning alongside US President Joe Biden at a meeting on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, reflected the difficulty of discussing Bakhmut with a lengthy, emotional answer.

Asked if Ukrainian forces were holding on or if Russia had captured the city, Zelenskyy was not entirely clear, answering: “I think no.”

He then appeared to suggest Bakhmut was a only pyrrhic victory for the Russians, and that there was nothing left of the city for the Ukrainians to lose.

“There is nothing in this place… just ruins and a lot of dead Russians,” he told reporters.

“But they came to us,” he said of the Russians.

He said that Ukrainian soldiers did “strong work” and “we appreciate their great job”.

At the meeting, Biden announced a new package of weapons for Ukraine, which is expected to launch a large-scale counteroffensive soon to push Russians back from parts of the territory they occupy.

The package would include “ammunition, artillery, armoured vehicles”, Biden said, days after giving allies the green light to transfer advanced American-built F-16 jets to Ukraine.

Biden said “the United States continues to help Ukraine respond, recover and rebuild. We’re also supporting peace.”

Speaking today, Zelenskyy also leveraged the powerful symbolism of Hiroshima, synonymous with the horrors of war, to press partners and sceptics alike to back his defence.

He used the emotional history of Hiroshima to drive home his despair over the destruction of his country, including Bakhmut.

“The photos of Hiroshima remind me of Bakhmut,” he said after a visit to the city’s museum, which documents the suffering caused by the 1945 US nuclear bomb attack.

“Absolute total destruction. There is nothing, there are no people.”

But he vowed that like Hiroshima, Ukraine would rebuild, and joined Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in a sombre ceremony to lay flowers at a cenotaph commemorating the 140,000 people killed by the bomb.

 – © AFP 2023