situation at the front. Bahmut
Ukrainian troops managed to stabilize their positions in the north of Bakhmut after the breakthrough of the Russian army. This is reported in the daily report of the British military intelligence. At the same time, it is difficult for the Ukrainian army to supply the warring units in Bakhmut, since Russian forces on March 2 managed to destroy the bridge on the only asphalt road that remained under Ukrainian control. Dirt roads are impassable due to mud.
Russian attacks, in turn, are hampered by public disagreements between the Wagner PMC and the Russian Ministry of Defense, which affect the morale of the personnel, intelligence notes. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, at a meeting with the leadership of the RF Armed Forces, said that the capture of Artemovsk (Bakhmut) would allow Russian troops to advance deep into the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The founder of PMC Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose mercenaries are fighting near Bakhmut, replied that the Ukrainian military surrenders only as a last resort, reinforcements continue to arrive in the city.
“Regarding the movement of the front after the “cleansing of Bakhmut”, the media always use a very strange word “clean up”. In Bakhmut, according to various estimates, from 12 to 20 thousand fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. If Bakhmut is cleared of them, then they must be destroyed – killed. If you mean putting their uniforms in order and sweeping the streets, Wagner PMC does not do this. It is very difficult to kill 12-20 thousand Ukrainian soldiers by tomorrow morning. Such masters exist only in the bowels of the General Staff or in Soyuzmultfilm.
We are still not given ammunition, military equipment, weapons, transport. Sapper shovels after almost a month, by the way, were given. Where the front will move after the capture of Artemovsk, ask Sergei Kuzhugetovich. My name is Evgeny Viktorovich. Why Sergei Kuzhugetovich talks about these prospects, I do not know. Perhaps in order to please the Russian audience. Perhaps to annoy Zelensky. We feel Zelensky's anger on ourselves in full, and from the joy of the Russian audience, the entrance to the Ministry of Defense was filled with flowers by March 8.
According to Bakhmut: the hardest battles go on day and night, but the Ukrainians do not run away anywhere. They die en masse for Bakhmut and surrender only as a last resort. Stop calling them cowards. They are the same as we are, and the same blood flows in them.
Military expert David Gendelman, in an interview with The Insider, noted that it has more operational and tactical significance, rather than strategic.
“In itself [Bakhmut] is not important strategically, it is not Kherson, Kyiv or Kharkov. It has rather operational and tactical significance as one of the defense nodes on the Bakhmut-Seversk line. Why such attention to him? This is a question for the other side: because the Russians are concentrating their main efforts there. If they were focused on something else, then we would be talking about another item. In itself, there is nothing special in Bakhmut. If they move away from this center of defense, then for the Russian side it will be a propaganda, operational-tactical, but not a strategic achievement. Nevertheless, this is one of the nodes of defense, and if the Russians have resources left, then it will be possible to think about Seversk in order to completely clear the entire Seversk-Bakhmut line and then go to Slavyansk-Kramatorsk with a strategic aim, but so far this is all operational-tactical level".
Military expert Alexander Kovalenko told The Insider that now the Russians cannot move away from Bakhmut, because this will be a serious reputational defeat for the Russian command.
“Bakhmut is important in the framework of the offensive operation by the Russian occupation forces in two directions – Konstantinovka and Slavyansk. Initially, there was such an idea – the capture of Bakhmut by Russian troops as the main transport hub, which would open an exit in other directions. Here we must understand that the Russian troops in all directions in which they advanced on Bakhmut, over the past nine months, have traveled 4-9 kilometers. For nine months they crawled this distance in a north, south and east direction. Therefore, if we are talking about the threat of further advancement of Russian troops in the direction of Slavyansk, Konstantinovka, and so on, then it should be understood that from Bakhmut to Slavyanka and from Bakhmut to Konstantinovka there are similar lines of defense and obstacles as to Bakhmut, and if we talk about the direction along the highway M-20 Konstantinovka-Kramatorsk-Slavyansk, then there is a series of settlements, each of which will be even more difficult than Bakhmut in battles.
Let's imagine in the future the scenario that the Russians will not give up their plans to attack Slavyansk and enter the administrative borders of the Donetsk region. They approached Bakhmut for nine months and we are talking about the direction to Slavyansk, then they will crawl to Slavyansk for another year, or even more, and then another battle for Slavyansk, which is even more fortified than Bakhmut.
The plan itself is critically fatal for the Russian command. The fact of the matter is that now they simply cannot take everything, abandon and move away from Bakhmut, because there are tens of thousands of dead, wounded, equipment destroyed, colossal resources near one small town. Taking it and getting away from it will be a serious defeat for the Russian command, so they will spend all their resources to capture the city.”
Mobilized refuse to follow orders
Servicemen from the Belgorod region refused to follow orders. They recorded a video in which they complained to Putin that they were being sent to the front without training and the necessary equipment. The video message of the mobilized was published by the ASTRA channel.
According to the senior lieutenant, who recorded the video against the background of the personnel, until the first days of March they were in Shebekino, Belgorod region, then they were transferred to Donetsk, where they were “driven to storm the villages”:
“Some kind of complete bullshit. Personnel are dying. That's all that's left of my platoon. From the whole company."
In this regard, the lieutenant said that he refuses to carry out the assigned tasks.
On March 3, it became known that those mobilized from the Irkutsk region, who complained three times that they were thrown into battle without preparation, almost all died during the assault on the Avdeevsky fortified area. As Sibir.Realii reported with reference to the relatives of the mobilized, several people were wounded, the rest were missing.
Lukashenka called Zelensky a "nit"
Alexander Lukashenko, commenting on the sabotage against the Russian A-50U aircraft at the airfield in Machulishchi during the presentation of state awards, called President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky a “nit”.
“President Zelensky is just a nit. Just nit! <…> Nits because he runs around Belarus, sends people to us and asks, as I said: "Let's conclude a non-aggression pact, let's agree, we don't have any problems." To which I said: "We are not going to attack." <…> You have heard all these statements of mine. And at this time… Well, the challenge has been thrown,” Lukashenka said.
Lukashenko said that more than 20 accomplices in the attack on the Russian A-50U aircraft at the airfield near Minsk were detained on the territory of the republic.
In the pro-Russian Telegram channels, there was an admission of a “Ukrainian militant” who allegedly attacked a Russian plane.
“Shvets Nikolai Vladimirovich, 1993 [born], [citizenship -] Ukraine, traveled to Russia on a Russian passport, from there already here,” says the detainee in the video. “I worked with the SBU, [city] Kyiv,” he adds.
On the morning of February 26, two explosions occurred at the airfield. As a result, the Russian airborne early warning and control aircraft A-50U was damaged. The monitoring project "Belarusian Guyun" claims that after that he went to the 325th Aircraft Repair Plant in Taganrog.
On March 3, the partisan project of the former Belarusian security forces BYPOL reported that Belarusian partisans had been monitoring the Machulishchi airfield for two weeks with the help of drones for the civilian population, bought in a store, and dropped an explosive device on the aircraft.
The speaker of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, said that Ukraine was not involved in the sabotage in Machulishchi. Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, also insists on this.
Exchange of prisoners
130 people returned to Ukraine as a result of the prisoner exchange. According to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak, among those released from captivity are 126 men and four women. Among them are the defenders of Mariupol, including the fighters who defended Azovstal, as well as the military captured in the area of Bakhmut and Soledar.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced the return of 90 Russian prisoners of war. They will be taken to Moscow for treatment.
Shot after the words "Glory to Ukraine"
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have previously established the identity of the military man, whose execution video was distributed by Telegram channels. According to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the name of the victim was Timofey Shadura , he was a soldier of the 30th separate mechanized brigade named after Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky. Shadura has been missing since February 3, 2023.
At the same time, journalist Yuri Butusov calls another name for the executed – Alexander Igorevich Matsievsky . Butusov tells the life story of Matsievsky: he was a sniper, in February he was captured near Soledar. The man was not a professional military man, he enlisted in the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a volunteer after the start of the Russian invasion.
As Butusov writes, the soldiers visited the mother of the deceased soldier in the city of Nizhyn and received confirmation from his relatives.
On March 6, a video circulated on Telegram channels, which allegedly shows the moment of execution of a Ukrainian prisoner of war by Russian soldiers. In particular, the video was published by the Trukha Telegram channel, which has more than 2 million subscribers. In the video, an unarmed man stands at a dug trench (“beds”) and smokes. The voice-over says "take it off". The man says: “Glory to Ukraine,” and they shoot him with machine guns.
Read about the situation at the front on March 6 in The Insider report: “ Ukrainian pilots are being trained to fly F-16 fighters in the United States, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wants to fight for Bakhmut. What's going on at the front ."
