After the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was almost completely surrounded by Russian troops, the British Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence analysis posted on Twitter that there was" heavy fighting going on in and around the city " in the eastern region of Donetsk.

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Edited by| Tony Wild

world section -  CJ journalist

Bakhmut – 4 march 2023

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Russian troops, bolstered by mercenaries working for the Wagner Group private military march company — achieved further advances in the northern suburbs of the city, according to the U.K. analysis. Two major bridges in Bakhmut have been destroyed in the last 36 hours, making it harder for Ukrainian soldiers to move in and out of the city, it said.

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In a video that appeared on social media on Friday, Evgeny Prigozhin who leads the Wagner Group, called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to order Ukrainian forces to leave the city. “The Wagner Group has essentially surrounded the city,” Prigozhin said, from a rooftop that Reuters located in a village north of Bakhmut. “The pincers are closing,” he said.

Bakhmut, in the eastern Donetsk region, has been one of Russia’s key targets for the past seven months. Capturing the city would help Moscow inch closer to controlling the whole Donbas region. Taking Bakhmut would also carry symbolic meaning as the first major Russian victory since President Vladimir Putin started a partial mobilization of military reservists in September 2022.