Bachmut after months of fighting. "This is the hell of Russian liberation" [VIDEO]

Illia Ponomarenko, a Ukrainian journalist cooperating with Kyiv Independent, shared a new video from Bakhmut - the city for which the longest and bloodiest battle of the war in Ukraine was fought so far. The drone video clearly shows the scale of the damage - virtually all buildings in the city are damaged, and some housing estates have been completely razed to the ground. “This is what's left of Bakhmut. The hell of Russian liberation” Ponomarenko wrote on Twitter.

One of the people commenting on the journalist's entry showed what Bakhmut looked like before the Russian invasion. The city had over 73 000 inhabitants at that time. Videos can be viewed below.

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1683454329607315459

- A tragedy. There's nothing there anymore. Today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in May. The head of Wagner's Russian mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced then that he had taken control of the city.

Ukrainian counter-offensive near Bakhmut is underway

Ukrainian forces have been conducting counter-offensive operations in the vicinity of Bakhmut for several weeks. According to the Interfax-Ukraine agency, about 100 Russian soldiers were killed there last week alone. The information was provided by Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for the Eastern Grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

- In the Bakhmut area, the Ukrainian defense forces are taking the initiative, putting pressure on the enemy, gradually liberating Ukrainian soil meter by meter. Every day it is hundreds of meters, every week - kilometers, and when the time comes - it will be tens of kilometers - said Czerewaty.

- The enemy is fighting fiercely: this week he shelled our positions 493 times with artillery of various types and calibers; there were seven clashes, two air strikes.

Bakhmut. Nearly 100 Russian soldiers died in a week. The occupiers lost a lot of equipment

The colonel concluded that during last week's fighting near Bakhmut, 94 Russian occupiers were killed and 152 wounded. The Ukrainians destroyed a lot of Russian equipment, including: a tank, three infantry fighting vehicles, two Pion self-propelled artillery systems, a Buk anti-aircraft missile system, as well as an Orlan-10 drone, five cars and one unmanned aerial vehicle control center.