Ukraine reinforces Bakhmut defences amid relentless Russian assault

Ukraine is reinforcing its positions around Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region after days of relentless assaults by Russian forces spearheaded by the Wagner mercenary group.

Bakhmut and the neighbouring town of Soledar have been the focus of intense efforts by Moscow to make progress in an area where Russian forces have been trying desperately to advance since early summer.

The capture of Soledar, which lies to the north-east of Bakhmut, would put Ukrainian forces in the area in danger of being encircled and offer Russia a potential avenue of approach against that city.

Military analysts say the strategic military benefit for Moscow would be limited. A US official has said Prigozhin, a powerful ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is eyeing the salt and gypsum from the mines.

Recent aerial images from the Bakhmut-Soldar sector have shown heavily cratered battlefields scattered with the bodies of fallen Russian troops, as Moscow has tried to overwhelm Ukrainian defences by weight of numbers and persistence, leading to an increase in Russian combat deaths.

The latest fighting came as strong doubts emerged over Russian claims to have killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers in barracks in Kramatorsk, with journalists visiting the city unable to find evidence of large-scale casualties.

A Reuters team visited two college dormitories that Moscow said had been temporarily housing Ukrainian personnel and which it had targeted as revenge for a new year attack that killed scores of Russian soldiers and caused an outcry in Russia.

Neither dormitory appeared to have been directly hit or seriously damaged. There were no obvious signs that soldiers had been living there and no sign of bodies or traces of blood.