Ukraine war: Kyiv says it retains control of key supply road into Bakhmut

Ukraine remains in control of a key supply route into Bakhmut, a military spokesperson said on Saturday.

Russian forces have been trying for 10 months to take the remains of what was once a city of 70,000. Kyiv has pledged to defend the eastern city, which Russia sees as a stepping stone to attacking other cities.

“For several weeks, the Russians have been talking about seizing the ‘road of life,’ as well as about constant fire control over it,” Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukrainian troops in the east, said in an interview with local news website Dzerkalo Tyzhnia.

“Yes, it is really difficult there ... (but) the defence forces have not allowed the Russians to ‘cut off’ our logistics.”

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The road is a vital road between the ruined Bakhmut and the nearby town Chasiv Yar to the west – a distance of just over 17km (10.56 miles).

Ukraine’s top military command said in its daily update on Sunday that its forces had repelled 58 Russian attacks over the past day along the part of frontline stretching from Bakhmut through Avdiivka and on to Maryinka further south in the Donetsk region.

If Bakhmut fell, Chasiv Yar would probably be next to come under Russian attack according to military analysts, though it is on higher ground and Ukrainian forces are believed to have built defensive fortifications nearby.

The head of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group threatened to withdraw some of his troops from Bakhmut if Moscow did not send more ammunition.

Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said his forces have advanced some 100 to 150 metres in Bakhmut, leaving just under three square km of the city in Ukrainian hands. But he said he lost 94 troops.

“It would have had been five times fewer if we had more ammunition,” Prigozhin said in an audio statement published on the Telegram messaging app of his press service on Saturday evening.

Separately, in a nearly 90-minute video interview with Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov published on Saturday, he threatened to withdraw troops from Bakhmut, saying they had enough ammunition left only for days.

“If the shortage of ammunition is not replenished, then ... most likely, we will be forced to withdraw part of the units,” Prigozhin said, quoting a letter he said was sent to Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, giving an April 28th deadline.

A huge fire in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol on Saturday has been put out, according to officials, after what was reported to be a Ukrainian drone strike on fuel tanks at a Russian navy depot.

Video footage posted on social media showed a large waterside area on fire, with a column of black smoke rising from the burning fuel.

The fire was later extinguished, according to Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhaev.

A Ukrainian military intelligence official said more than 10 tanks of oil products with a capacity of about 40,000 tonnes intended for use by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet were destroyed, RBC Ukraine reported.

The death toll from Russia’s rocket and drone attacks on cities across Ukraine early on Friday has risen to at least 25, including five children. – Reuters