Geography of Ukraine

In the city in the Donetsk region, located about 90 kilometers from Bakhmut, there are still about 2,000 civilians left, out of the 30,000 who lived in that city before the war.
"I'm sorry to say this, but Avdivka looks more and more like a place from post-apocalyptic movies," wrote the head of the city's military administration Vitaly Barabash on the Telegram channel.

The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, published a video in which he claims to know about the Ukrainian plan, the aim of which is to "strike three blows".
At the same time, he states that Ukraine has grouped 200,000 soldiers in Donbas, out of which 80,000 are near Bakhmut.

This was said by one of Kyiv's top generals, raising hopes for an unlikely turnaround in the besieged city. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, announced on his Telegram channel that "the Russians are losing significant forces in Bakhmut and are running out of energy."

Fierce fighting was raging Monday for control of the centre of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, the bloodiest battle of Moscow's invasion, as Russia agreed to a short extension of a crucial UN-backed grain export deal.

Russia's advance seems to have stalled in Moscow's campaign to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, a leading think tank said in an assessment of the longest ground battle of the war.

The Ukrainian military was preparing Sunday for an upcoming counteroffensive, with a top commander saying his forces' ongoing defence of Bakhmut in the face of fierce and sustained Russian attacks was necessary to "buy time" for that push.

Russia unleashed a massive missile barrage on cities across Ukraine early Thursday, targeting energy infrastructure facilities in the first attack on such a scale in three weeks. Ukrainian officials said residential buildings were hit but didn't immediately say if there were casualties.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the "Wagner Group" paramilitary formation, which is fighting in Ukraine, claims that the entire eastern part of the city of Bakhmut is under Russian control.

The owner of Russia's Wagner Group military company claimed Wednesday that his troops have extended their gains in the key Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut as fierce fighting continues in the war's longest battle.

Although it looks increasingly likely that Russia is going to capture Bakhmut, the heavy loss of men and equipment in its attempt to seize the mining town in the Donetsk region could limit its ability to launch new offensives in the near future.