Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed the efforts of an elite brigade in Bakhmut as the battle for the contested Donetsk city grinds on.
Speaking in his nightly address, Zelensky said he wished to “commend the warriors of the 92nd separate mechanized brigade for their successful actions in the area of Bakhmut.”
For months, the Donbas settlement has been the scene of heavy fighting and bombardment as Moscow’s forces attempt to wrest control from Ukrainian fighters.
On March 8, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank estimated Russian forces had claimed control over at least half of the ruined city. In its latest update on March 13, the think tank said that the Kremlin’s fighters had advanced in and around Bakhmut on Sunday and Monday, but the city had not yet fallen.
On Tuesday morning, the Ukrainian General Staff of the Armed Forces said Russian forces were continuing their efforts to capture the city, but Kyiv’s forces had “fought back” against the attacks. Writing on Telegram, the Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said one civilian had been injured in Bakhmut over the past 24 hours.
On March 4, the UK defense ministry said Ukraine’s military was “reinforcing” the area around Bakhmut with “elite units.” On March 6, the ISW also said that elite Russian airborne units and Wagner fighters had joined “lower-quality troops” in Bakhmut.
The 92nd separate mechanized brigade has previously been described by Forbes as “one of the best-trained and best-equipped units” in the Ukrainian army.
Just ahead of the outbreak of full-scale war on February 24, 2022, the brigade, typically based in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, had some of the most modern tanks available to Ukraine’s armed forces, according to the outlet.
But in a 2020 report for the Ukrainian government, looking at the Ukrainian military’s preparedness for armed conflict with Russian-backed separatists in 2014, the brigade was judged as not having formed a “single operational unit, so it was not engaged in combat in Donbas .”
The brigade was involved in the battle to retake Kharkiv in 2022, coming up against Russia’s “formidable” 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade, according to The Washington Post.
Now deployed in Donetsk, according to Zelensky, they are fighting what the ISW described on Monday as Russian advances from the northwest of the city of Bakhmut. Zelensky described the situation in eastern Ukraine as “very tough” and “painful,” listing Bakhmut as one of the locations “where our future is being decided.”
The battle has racked up heavy casualties on both sides. On Sunday evening, Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces had killed “more than 1,100 enemy soldiers” in the area around Bakhmut alone in under a week. On Monday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Telegram that “up to 190 Ukrainian servicemen” were killed in the previous 24 hours in Donetsk, without specifying how many had died by its count in Bakhmut.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed the efforts of an elite brigade in Bakhmut as the battle for the contested Donetsk city grinds on.
