Ukrainian forces repelled multiple Russian attacks Saturday in fighting around Bakhmut, which has come down to a yard-by-yard battle for vital roads that supply the city’s defenders.
But the Ukrainian military acknowledged that soldiers inside the city were encircled on three sides by a combined force of the Russian army and the Wagner private military company, which includes fighters recruited from prisons.
In a video, Wagner’s owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on Friday taunted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying that only one road remained open to the west of Bakhmut, a city in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian commanders say that a counterattack this past week pushed Russian forces away from at least one of the embattled roads, for the moment easing resupply for troops in the city.