Ukraine war: Why is Bakhmut so important to Russia and a ‘thorn in the side of Putin’?
The landscape around the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut has come to resemble a First World War battlefield, the ground carved up by artillery and cut with networks of trenches.
For nine months, Russian forces including Wagner Group mercenaries have relentlessly attacked the city as they pursue full control of the Donbas region.
Now Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is claiming that his forces have finally captured the city and Vladimir Putin has congratulated those who fought there.
But Ukraine has refused to concede, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying that the defence of the city still stands.
So why is Bakhmut so important to Russia?
Strategically it isn’t, retired air vice-marshal Sean Bell tells Sky News.
“Bakhmut is not a significant military target”, he says.
But set in the context of the wider Russian effort to capture all of the Donbas, Bakhmut has been part of a pocket of territory still controlled by Ukrainian forces that has been a “thorn in the side of Putin”, Mr Bell added.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence previously said that capturing the city would have “limited operational value” to Moscow, though it added it would “potentially allow Russia to threaten the larger urban areas of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk”.
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Is Russia claiming Bakhmut significant?
What have Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner been doing at Bakhmut?
Much of Moscow’s offensives around the city have been manned by Wagner Group mercenaries, including huge numbers of convicts who have been taken from Russian prisons and sent to the frontline.
After effectively telling Vladimir Putin that Wagner could prevail at Bakhmut where the Russian army could not – and then failing to take the city for so long – Prigozhin began blaming Russia for the lack of progress, Mr Bell said.
“He’s not a military expert. So Bakhmut suddenly becomes not about the military significance, it’s all about the political significance and Putin telling him and the battle between them about power and legacy.
“So I suspect that’s why Bakhmut has become this sort of iconic moment in the war when from a military perspective it’s very hard to understand how it how it got there.”
Now after nine months of gruelling, costly battle for the city, Wagner forces have been filmed raising Russian flags in the ruins of Bakhmut.
Much of the city has been levelled to the ground by Russian artillery. Pic: AP
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Another feature of the battle for Bakhmut, Mr Bell says, is the difference in styles of warfare between the Ukrainians and the Russians.
“Russia has simply got untrained conscripts, ‘here’s a gun, fire it’.
“And what we’re seeing on the battlefield – and Bakhmut’s a really good example – is Russia have levelled it by doing loads and loads of carpet bombing.
“What the Ukrainians have been doing is surgically striking their resupply, surgically striking where their leadership is, surgically striking their bomb dumps.”
He likened Russia’s strategy to a war of attrition like those seen in the two world wars, whereas Ukraine has been using modern joined-up military thinking.
“It feels like a clash of cultures where the Russians’ only experience is fighting 20th century warfare, whereas the Ukrainians are fighting using Western technology in 21st century warfare,” he added.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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