Ukrainian Drone Captures Horrors of Bakhmut Battle as Fighting Rages—Video

A Ukrainian drone has captured the horrors of the battle for Bakhmut, as clashes continue to intensify in the city in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region nearly 10 months into the war.

Footage geolocated by an open source expert and shared on Monday by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a United States think tank, shows thick plumes of smoke rising into the air as explosions strike the territory.

The three-and-a-half-minute-long clip, posted on social media on December 19, shows clashes on Fedora Maksymenka street on the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut, where members of the mercenary outfit the Wagner Group and Ukrainian troops are engaging in trench warfare and grinding street battles.

Heavy fighting can be seen in the eastern suburbs of the region, which had a pre-war population of 70,000.

"Ukrainian forces, dismounted and reinforced by British-donated Wolfhound TSV MRAPs, assault a Russian position," an open source intelligence account tweeted, showing the drone footage that was shared by the ISW.

Newsweek wasn't able to independently confirm the date the drone footage was filmed.

The battle for Bakhmut, led by Wagner Group fighters, ramped up after Russian troops withdrew from the city of Kherson last month. Capturing the region would provide the Russian army with a morale boost following a string of military defeats elsewhere in Ukraine.

The town of Bakhmut itself doesn't hold a lot of strategic value, but its location does. Taking Bakhmut would enable Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces to launch artillery strikes on key places, such as the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk in the Donetsk region.

The ISW said in its daily assessment of the war in Ukraine on Monday that Russian forces reportedly lost positions south of Bakhmut on Sunday, and continued ground attacks in the area on Sunday and Monday.

A Russian military correspondent reportedly embedded in a unit fighting south of Bakhmut admitted on December 18 that Ukrainian forces had managed to dislodge Russian troops from unspecified positions they fought for "all autumn," the ISW said.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Joint Forces Task Force reported that Ukrainian troops have been repelling five to seven Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups near the town daily.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his evening address on Monday described Bakhmut as "the hottest spot on the entire front line," and said Russia is "destroying it right down to the scorched earth."

"Since May, the occupiers have been trying to break our Bakhmut, but time goes by and Bakhmut is already breaking not only the Russian army, but also the Russian mercenaries who came to replace the wasted army of the occupiers," he added.

Newsweek reached out to Russia's foreign ministry for comment.

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