The battle to keep the ‘road of life’ out of Bakhmut open: How Ukraine is engaging in terrifying close-quarters trench combat to halt Russia’s advance and prevent supply line being cut off
- Russian forces occupy most of Bakhmut’s centre after months of brutal warfare
- Kyiv’s troops are fighting to protect the only way to get ammo in and injured out
Ukrainian forces are fighting desperately to keep vital tracks into Bakhmut open as the bloody war for the embattled mining city in Donetsk continues to rage.
With Russian forces occupying much of the centre and everything east of the city, the Bakhmut ‘road of life’ is the only way Kyiv’s frontline troops can replenish their dwindling food and ammunition supplies while evacuating the critically injured to the nearby town of Chasiv Yar.
Ukrainian officials say their soldiers are holding firm, but after months of highly attritional warfare – in which Putin’s troops suffered eye-watering losses amid countless World War One-style human wave attacks – the Russian army and the Wagner mercenary group have begun to encircle what’s left of the demolished city.
Even Ukrainian frontline troops have reported the ferocious battle for Bakhmut is becoming precarious amid brutal close-quarter urban gunfights and constant drone warfare.
‘The city looks more like ruins. There are almost no whole houses left. It’s practically wiped out. There’s shelling every day and every day there are more ruins,’ said Denis, a military engineer who joined the military last year after university.
‘Artillery and mortar shelling – don’t stop. Drones drop grenades. And of course there is street fighting and machine gun fire.’
Ukrainian soldiers fire howitzer D-30 at the frontline near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Apr. 19, 2023
Artillerymen of the Ukrainian 80th separate airborne assault brigade fire from a BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher towards Russian positions on the front line near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, on April 18, 2023
Ukrainian servicemen return from heavy fighting amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, close to Bakhmut, Ukraine, April 15, 2023
There are only two main roads left via which Ukrainian troops can receive supplies and evacuate their injured comrades.
But even these are damaged with artillery shells, so armoured personnel carriers are often forced to negotiate churned and treacherous dirt roads.
Who are the DaVinci Wolves?
The DaVinci Wolves battalion is a volunteer unit of Ukraine’s Ground Forces.
Formed in 2014 amid the beginning of the Donbas war, the unit has fought alongside regular army battalions for years.
It relies on donations and private funding to operate, but is one of the most well trained and well equipped volunteer units in Ukraine.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the unit’s ranks swelled and it became a battalion.
The unit’s commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo used the callsign DaVinci, which led the unit to be known as DaVinci Wolves.
Kotsyubaylo was awarded the title ‘Hero of Ukraine’ on November 30, 2021 for leading the unit throughout the Donbas war.
The commander continued to fight alongside his men on the frontlines until March 2023, when he was killed in a bloody battle with Russian forces near Bakhmut.
Ukrainian authorities say some of the fiercest fighting is taking place in the devastated city’s central districts against the Wagner group.
‘In some places, the occupiers and the Ukrainian defenders are a few metres apart. There are no signs that Wagner is starved for shells,’ they said, suggesting there will be little reprieve for Kyiv’s soldiers clinging to what little territory they still hold.
Heart-pounding first-person footage released by Ukrainian territorial defence unit ‘DaVinci Wolves’ earlier this week illustrated just how intense such battles can be.
Soldiers are seen recovering from a recent battle in a dugout when a Russian grenade suddenly explodes at the mouth of their trench, knocking one Ukrainian fighter to the ground.
The unit surges from cover and begins firing assault weapons at the oncoming Russians, who can be seen storming frantically across no-mans-land to attack the Ukrainian position.
The scene around the battle is a veritable dystopian hellscape – smoke rises in the distance and the fields in which they are fighting are littered with dead trees and battle debris.
DaVinci Wolves manage to suppress the Russian onslaught and briefly celebrate, yelling: ‘This is our field, you *****!’
But they are quickly forced to retreat back to cover as Moscow’s artillery begins pounding the battlefield with shells.
The clip offers a harrowing insight into the reality of frontline warfare experienced by hundreds of Ukrainian troops every day in and around Bakhmut.
Soldiers on both sides now refer to the conflict as the ‘Bakhmut meat grinder’ amid the bloodshed, with Russian troops – many of them conscripts or prisoners recruited by the infamous Wagner mercenary group – being forced to embark on suicidal ‘human wave’ missions to exhaust Ukrainian resources.
An explosive suddenly rocks the dug out, causing the soldier at the mouth of the trench to fall
A grenade flies through the air as Ukrainian forces push their way out of the bunker
One soldier works his way around to a slightly raised position and opens fire on the Russians
Explosives fly overhead as the troops emerge from the dug out and suppress the assault
Incendiary munitions rain down over Bakhmut (pictured)
Analysts say Bakhmut – which was a bustling industrial hub with a pre-war population of 70,000 – offers little strategic leverage. But both sides have heavily invested politically.
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Wagner’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has hinted his forces might be running out of steam and twice in the last week called on Moscow to entrench rather than attack.
But the Kremlin seems intent on taking Bakhmut to sell a victory at home after a dry spell of several defeats.
Kyiv meanwhile says its military is holding out to exhaust Russian forces and is refusing to withdraw troops, claiming that losing Bakhmut could turn the tide of the war and result in increasing pressure to negotiate with Putin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in late March that, if the city were to fall to Russian forces after a protracted battle, his Russian counterpart would ‘sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China, to Iran’.
‘If he will feel some blood – smell that we are weak – he will push, push, push,’ he told the Associated Press, adding that a loss anywhere at this stage in the war could put Ukraine’s hard-fought momentum at risk.
‘We can’t lose the steps because the war is a pie – pieces of victories. Small victories, small steps,’ he said.
‘Our society will feel tired. Our society will push me to compromise with them.’
There are doubts about how much longer Ukrainian forces can hold out in Bakhmut but Denis believes that his brigade will be there for a long time.
‘This is one of the most difficult areas right now. And there is a lot of work to do,’ he said.
Smoke is seen rising from the city centre in this drone footage of Bakhmut amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, April 15, 2023
Medics treat a wounded Ukrainian serviceman inside a frontline medical stabilisation point, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the town of Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine April 19, 2023
Medics carry a wounded Ukrainian serviceman inside a frontline medical stabilisation point, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the town of Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine April 19, 2023
A medic takes a rest at a frontline medical stabilisation point near Bakhmut,
Wagner’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin (pictured recruiting Russian prisoners in September 2022), has hinted his forces might be running out of steam and twice in the last week called on Moscow to entrench rather than attack
Another unit tasked with demining Russian explosives and booby traps so Ukrainian infantry can move forward was interviewed by AFP just outside Bakhmut earlier this week.
‘When you go out, you don’t know if you’re coming back,’ said Oleg, 34, who works in positions around Bakhmut, often at night, often by moonlight.
‘They even mine the corpses of their soldiers. When they retreat, they mine absolutely everything,’ he added.
‘You have no margin for error. It all depends on how lucky you are.’
‘You hear a boom, a whistle and then an explosion. And of course the shrapnel,’ another engineer said, just hours after rotating from the fiercest battle of Russia’s invasion.
‘That’s the worst. It’s scary – scary for anyone,’ he said, adding he had no antidote to fear other than staying home.
‘More than once we have seen them jump out of cover and begin to run. They are killed, they gather their strength, and do it again,’ said Pavlo, a 33-year-old former firefighter.
Pavlo conceded that despite Russian losses, the engineers he is competing with are formidable.
‘I’ll tell you this, they have very smart sappers. Say what you want – very smart sappers.
‘They don’t follow any of the rules. Tripwires, certain anti-personnel mines – they’re banned but they plant them anyway.’
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