Ukraine’s deputy defense minister has said Kyiv's forces have captured more than ten Russian positions on the outskirts of the frontline city of Bakhmut.
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“Enemy soldiers of various units have been captured,” Ganna Malyar said in a post on social media on Sunday evening.
“Anyone who knows the real situation and is there now understands the gravity of what is happening,” she added.
Malyar said that "fierce" fighting continued in Bakhmut, located in the eastern region of Donetsk, and that Russians were trying to advance and destroying "everything" on their way.
It marks the latest development in what appears to be a string of successes for Ukraine in the area of Bakhmut.
On Saturday Kyiv said its armed forces were "moving forward" in the Bakhmut sector, in what the head of the mercenary group Wagner has described as a “rout” for Russian forces.
"Our soldiers are moving forward in some areas of the front, and the enemy is losing equipment and manpower," Commander of Ukrainian ground forces Oleksandr Syrskyi said on social media.
On Friday, Kyiv said its troops had advanced two kilometres near the besieged city. Russia’s defense ministry then acknowledged its forces had fallen back but said it was for strategic reasons and they had taken up a better defensive position in the Maloilinivka area, a move that took advantage of "the favourable conditions of the Berkhivka reservoir".
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The Kremlin’s seemingly calm response to Ukraine’s advances were in stark contrast to that of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, who is spearheading Moscow's attack on Bakhmut.
On Friday afternoon he accused the Russian army of "fleeing" from around the city.
And earlier in the week, a fierce Ukrainian counterattack in the Bakhmut sector destroyed Russian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, killing as many as 500 soldiers from the Wagner mercenary group, in the worst tactical defeat suffered by the Kremlin’s forces in months.
In tough, close-in fighting, soldiers from Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, backed by T-64 tanks and M-113 armored personnel carriers, wiped out a chain of Russian defensive positions to the southwest of Bakhmut, advancing Ukrainian-controlled territory to the key Bakhmutovka River.
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