(Dan Tri) – A Ukrainian commander said his reconnaissance group was ordered to withdraw from Bakhmut city as soon as possible.
Ukrainian tanks in Bakhmut (Photo: Reuters).
Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) reconnaissance unit in Bakhmut, was ordered to leave the city on the night of March 2.
`At midnight, the Madiar Birds unit received an order to immediately leave Bakhmut to a new combat location,` Mr. Brovdi announced on Telegram today, March 3.
Mr. Brovdi refused to comment on the withdrawal order or why this unit was deployed to another area `at a critical time for Bakhmut`.
`We followed orders,` Brovdi added.
On the same day, Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Russian private military organization Wagner, announced that `Wagner’s units have practically surrounded Bakhmut, leaving only one path`.
In a message sent to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr. Prigozhin called on Ukrainian troops to withdraw from Bakhmut and open the way for civilians to leave the city.
The Donetsk police force announced today that Russian forces blew up a key bridge connecting the city of Bakhmut with the neighboring village of Khromove overnight.
According to Ukrainian officials, a mandatory evacuation order was issued in the Donetsk region and about 5,000 people remained in Bakhmut.
Bakhmut is a city in Donetsk province, Eastern Ukraine, which Russia has sought to control for the past 8 months but has not been successful.
Fighting between Russia and Ukraine for Bakhmut has been fierce for the past 8 months.
Although Ukrainian officials announced that they would protect Bakhmut as long as possible to drain resources and hold off Russian forces before Kiev received Western aid and launched a counterattack, Kiev also emphasized that there would be no trade-offs.
Serhiy Rakhmanin, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, said on March 1 that sooner or later, Ukrainian forces will have to leave Bakhmut, because there is no reason to keep this area at any cost.
A statement from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that Russian forces are trying to enter Bakhmut with `relentless` intensity.
Amid intense fighting, Ukrainian officials considered withdrawing troops from Bakhmut.
Spokesperson of the Eastern Ukrainian Military District Sergey Cherevaty also said that troop withdrawal could be considered if the threat to Ukrainian forces is greater than the need to retain Bakhmut.