Hell on earth, "the city where there is no living place" or "the hottest place in the world", this is how Bakhmut is described, the city in eastern Ukraine where the fiercest battles are taking place between the Ukrainian troops, who are trying to defend their country, and the Russian troops, interested in seizing new territories.
The descriptions belong to some young Ukrainian soldiers who lived, for no less than three months, the terror of the confrontations in Bakhmut.
No matter if it was day or night, frost or mud, cold or hot, rain or snow, holiday or ordinary day, Monday or Sunday, they were continuously on the battlefield, within the range of the Russian artillery.
They saw death through their eyes, but even worse, they saw their comrades killed by the enemy. With low morale and depleted powers, they find their last resources to withstand the invasion from the East.
Such moments were experienced by Oleh Sapig, a young lieutenant in the Ukrainian army. He is 36 years old, and the last three months have been a never ending nightmare.
"Our mission was to defend the positions in Bakhmut, to pursue the enemy and not allow the enemy to occupy new positions. The city practically no longer exists, it is destroyed, the enemy constantly attacks neighbourhood after neighbourhood, destroys all the infrastructure, the local population practically no longer exists, those who remain are forced to seek shelter in basements and, when the Russians destroy the buildings in the basement of which they found shelter, they have to leave the city. The situation is very complicated. The saddest moments are related to death to my comrades. The wounded and the dead. This is the most difficult for me. Second is the difficulty of evacuating the wounded soldiers, because it is very hard to evacuate a wounded one. (...) It is difficult to convey in words what Bakhmut means. There is no living place there. Every position is completely destroyed, from the very foundations. There is nothing left, the whole earth is burning, because of the artillery fire, because of the occupying troops," Oleh, who left the first front line during Friday, told AGERPRES.
The young lieutenant, who comes from the Khmelnytsky region, lives with the hope that the victory will belong to Ukraine.
Also on Friday, Laki, a 30-year-old non-commissioned officer, for whom Bakhmut was a great test of life, left the front line. He says that, during the time he was on the front line, he witnessed atrocities committed by the Russian side.
"Bakhmut is, first of all, a fortress. We resisted and resisted until the end. A lot of forces were used to be able to resist. It is an example for the whole world of what can happen to civilians, to the military. Bakhmut is a example of the atrocities committed by the Russians, who are our aggressors. We saw how they behave with our soldiers, but also with their soldiers, how they behave with the peaceful population. The hardest thing is to watch how you lose those around you, to see how the city is destroyed, how they wipe it off the face of the earth, how it completely disappears. We don't understand what those people are fighting for, what they came to us for, they are not fighting for territory, I don't know what they are fighting for. What they are doing, how they make fun of their own dead soldiers. We had cases when we found that to provoke us they hung the bodies of their dead soldiers from trees at night and we could see it through the night vision devices. Then they created their positions under their bodies and from there they were shooting at us, so that we could engage in battle," Laki confessed.
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A Ukrainian officer tried to make the robot portrait of the Ukrainian military who fought in Bakhmut. One of the characteristics of this soldier is that he would return to the battlefield only out of the desire to defeat the Russian enemy.
"First of all, I want to say that our returning soldiers are extremely tired, they are overwhelmed by emotions, by what they saw there, by the death of their comrades. They feel all these things, but they definitely want to get there again, to fulfill the missions which they are sent for, to expel the enemies from our territories. If there is hell on earth, it is there," Lieutenant Colonel Yahedka said.
The city of Bakhmut, located 55 kilometers east of Kramatorsk, is considered the hottest point on the military map of Ukraine, a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the assaults of the Russian Federation. The city is considered strategic, its remaining under Ukrainian control blocking the approach of Russian troops to the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, cities that had over 200,000 and 120,000 inhabitants, respectively.
"Any city, town or small locality is important for Ukrainian defenders. We notice that our soldiers repel attacks, stop the advance of the enemy, and the border guards make special efforts. Of course, it is difficult. As soldiers, we all understand that it is a war, but it was very difficult in the contemporary world to understand that we have as neighbours an aggressor country that, through barbaric methods, will wage a war of extermination against us," the press officer of the border troops from the east of Ukraine, lieutenant colonel Ihor Lazogub, assessed.
At the moment, almost 80 per cent of Bakhmut is under the control of the Russian army, and Ukrainian troops are making efforts to keep at least part of the city.
The civilian population was completely evacuated, and most of the blocks of flats and houses of this city were destroyed as a result of the urban fighting.
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Hundreds of people die every day in the perimeter of Bakhmut, both from the Russian and Ukrainian battle groups, and hundreds of other soldiers are injured.
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