The armed forces of Ukraine in the Donetsk region have successfully knocked out the Russian army from the outskirts of Bakhmut.

The occupiers try to move forward literally on the corpses of their soldiers, but in vain.

The owner of the "Wagner" PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin is looking for an excuse for the failure of his mercenaries and complains that the defense lines of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Bakhmut direction are set up "every 10 meters".

According to some reports, the Russian army, due to failures in Bakhmut, began to transfer equipment to the nearby Soledar, in order to show success at least there.

TSN.ua collected details of the battles near Bakhmut, statements of the Ukrainian authorities and comments of experts regarding the latest events in the Donetsk region.

Ukrainian command about the Bakhmut direction

On January 4, President of Ukraine 

Volodymyr Zelenskyi

 praised the work of the Defense Forces, which inflicted numerous losses on the enemy near Bakhmut.

According to him, the occupiers have been forced to constantly postpone the date of the capture of the entire Donbas for half a year.

"Today, I want to celebrate our fighters in the Bakhmut direction, in particular the special unit of the GUR "Shaman", as well as the border guards of the Luhansk detachment, who, together with the fighters of the International Defense Legion of Ukraine, inflict numerous losses on the enemy and knock out the occupiers from their positions on the outskirts of Bakhmut. This is a good result, and I thank you for him," the president said.

On January 3, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Valery Zaluzhny

said that the situation at the front in the area of ​​Soledar-Bakhmut-Mayorsk remains the most difficult.

"There, the enemy is actually trying to move forward using their corpses, but units of the Defense Forces are holding back the enemy's offensive at the cost of overwhelming force," Zaluzhny noted.

Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine

Hanna Malyar

reported that the Russian invaders will soon continue to form additional assault units in order to focus their main efforts on capturing five cities in Donbas - Lyman, Soledar, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Maryinka.

What the Defense Forces say

Andrii Illenko

, an officer of the "Freedom" battalion of the National Guard

, says that the losses of Russians in the Bakhmut direction are measured daily by hundreds of dead and seriously wounded.

"The battle for Bakhmut has been going on since the middle of the summer, all this time the enemy is trying to either surround the city or take it by storm, but in fact it has no success.

The enemy is throwing large forces here, probably everything that is capable of combat that it now has, what else remained

," he said.

Illenko added that Bakhmut is under Ukrainian control, and fighting is still ongoing on the outskirts and flanks. 

On January 4, the Ukrainian military demonstrated how they destroy another stronghold of the occupiers in the direction of Bakhmut.

The fighters of the 28th brigade named after the Knights of the Winter Campaign distinguished themselves.

Soldiers of the State Border Guard Service also showed the consequences of one of the assaults on Ukrainian positions near Bakhmut.

As a result of the unsuccessful sortie, the occupiers lost three dozen people killed and wounded and 300 meters of territory.

"The border guards waited in shelters for the raid, and when the enemy's infantry approached, they opened fire. The assault attempt failed, the enemy, having suffered losses, began to run away... With a rapid attack, our fighters "on the shoulders" of the enemy took their positions," the message reads.

Photo: State Border Service of Ukraine

"It's just 1943, they are marching forward in such masses, not counting human lives, nothing," says "Teodor", a fighter of the consolidated border detachment of the DPSU.

Soledar - the new goal of the occupiers?

Citing Ukrainian commanders and British intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reported that

the Russian army had forcibly suspended its offensive on Bakhmut and was moving armored vehicles and artillery toward Soledar

, 15 km to the north.

According to the publication's sources, the Russian Federation is no longer attacking Bakhmut with such ferocity as it did last month, as it transferred some of its equipment and firepower to Soledar.

Representatives of the Ukrainian command believe that the Russians may have decided to "probe" the defense of the Armed Forces near Soledar in order to show "victory" at least there.

In an interview on the TSN YouTube channel,

military expert

Mykhailo Samus commented on the "change of emphasis" in the plans of the occupiers.

"If the Russians are trying to transfer their troops from Bakhmut to Soledar,

this means only one thing - they will not be able to achieve their goals under Bakhmut

. They have been trying to surround or capture this city for several months. Obviously, they are not succeeding. Therefore, it is possible , that they have decided to change their emphasis a little bit, to shift that emphasis in other directions and try to break through, to break the Ukrainian defenses. But I am sure that they will not succeed in this either, because they do not have any tool to knock the strategic, tactical or operational initiative out of hands of Ukrainian soldiers," says Samus.

Military expert

Serhii Grabsky

does not rule out that the Russian army is trying to bypass Bakhmut from both sides after unsuccessful attempts at a frontal assault.

"Now, very intense fighting continues in the Bakhmut area. The

enemy is trying to break through our defenses with small units, press in the city itself and bypass the Soledar area and the Klishchiivka area from the south

. The intensity of the fighting is not decreasing in all these directions... The enemy is still trying , perhaps by inertia, to advance in this direction," said Grabskyi.

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