221 pro-Russian troops were killed and more than 300 wounded in Bakhmut during the last 24 hours, Ukrainian military spokesperson Serhiy Cherevatyi has said.
The small, eastern Ukrainian city has recently become the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the conflict.
“The suburbs of Bakhmut are littered with the corpses of Russian occupiers, which no one is taking away”, senior Ukrainian defence official Oleksiy Danilov wrote on Telegram on Saturday.
“Our army defends the heroic city of Bakhmut, our army stands, this is our fortress. We cannot even imagine how useful it will be for the country, for our army in the near future”, Danilov added.
He stressed that all the backstreets and areas around the city are strewn with the corpses of Russians and Wagner troops. “No one is taking them away, because no one needs them”, the Ukrainian official commented.
“Imagine where these terrorists would be today, what cities they would already be in, if our boys and girls had not defended this very city”, he added.
According to Kyiv, the Russians are sending their best military units to the battle. For the Kremlin, the capture of Bakhmut will rupture Ukraine's defenses, and could be a step towards capturing the entire Donbass region, which is one of the main goals of the Russian campaign.
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Source: PAP, Reuters