Ukrainian commander says Russians put up ‘stubborn’ resistance

• A Ukrainian commander contradicted hints of the poor condition of the Russian forces.
• Andrei Biletsky of the 3rd separate brigade said that Russian soldiers are not “stupid”.
• These statements come at a time when President Zelensky said that Bakhmut was completely destroyed.

A Ukrainian brigade commander fighting on the front lines in Bakhmut dismissed the notion that Russian soldiers were ill-equipped and disaffected.

Andrei Biletsky, commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Attack Brigade, said in a video released on the cable that the recent victories did not come with “an easy price”.

The enemy is not as stupid and miserable as some experts claim.

He added: “The enemy is stubborn and ruthless. But we are moving forward. We are digging every meter of Ukrainian territory. Slava Ukraine! »

Beletsky’s comments contradict much of the previous analysis of the Russian military, which tends to point out that the troops are ill-equipped, lack training and suffer from low morale.

The Telegram video comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that the town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, where Russian and Ukrainian forces are locked in a particularly brutal battle, has been completely destroyed.

They destroyed everything. There are no buildings. Unfortunately. “It’s a tragedy,” Zelensky said during Sunday’s meeting with President Joe Biden at the G7 summit in Hiroshima.

“Today only Bakhmut is in our hearts,” he added.

The BBC reported that Zelensky’s office later made it clear that it had no intention of the city falling to Russian forces.

The Ukrainian 3rd Separate Attack Brigade is in action

Meanwhile, Ukraine said it had made progress on the flanks around Bakhmut, Beletsky’s 3rd Separate Attack Brigade saw action.

And the brigade’s latest helmet camera footage is the reality of the heavy fighting, showing the smoldering ruin of Russian trenches strewn with corpses after the unit launched a series of surprise counterattacks.

Insider’s Isobel Van Hagen reports that the video shows Ukrainian soldiers throwing grenades, firing their weapons, and advancing toward the Russian positions.

In his video, Bilatesky described the battles against the Russian 72nd Brigade and the so-called “Storm Z”, calling them an “analogue” of units of the Wagner Group of liberated convicts, which are operated by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

He described hard-won victories that left “more than 50 Russian dead” and the capture of “a lot of trophies: equipment, weapons and prisoners”.

British Ministry of Defence announce It is possible that additional Russian forces were deployed to Bakhmut to fight against the Kievan advance.

The intelligence report said that Russian commanders “will likely continue to see the capture of Bakhmut as the main immediate objective of the war,” which would “allow him to claim a certain degree of success in the conflict.”