Shelling and missile strikes are so constant and intense that a lull seems unnatural. But it is in these brief periods of relative calm that residents left in this broken city emerge from underground refuges to seek sustenance.
Time is short for those who come to get food and water, as well as for volunteers handing out supplies. Russian drones fly overhead, frequently targeting any gatherings of people for strikes. There is anxiety among those in the queue, and relief when they get to leave with their ration.
“Every time I come out, I fear something bad may happen so I try to be as quick as possible to get things, that is the way to survive,” says Kateryna Voloshina, hurrying through the rubble and gouged-out craters in the city streets.
“Life can end very suddenly here, two people on my street have been killed, one of the bodies is still there under her fallen house; they haven’t been able to dig her up yet.
“The husband came to collect some things, it must be such a bad feeling knowing his wife’s body is still there.”
Kateryna stops to look up at the pale blue sky on a day of autumn sunshine. “It’s good to have a bit of warmth on your skin even for a short while. But we will have to wait for a long time to enjoy that properly,” she says, before trudging home to her two children and aged aunt.
As in many other cities, towns and villages in the Donbas, residents here have stayed despite pounding attacks, rejecting official advice to leave and sometimes paying a lethal price.
The ferocity of the assault on Bakhmut, and the death and destruction that has wrought, is due to a fevered Russian attempt to secure a strategic and symbolic victory after retreating in other battlefields in the face of spectacular Ukrainian advances.
Moscow has ordered the evacuation of civilians from Kherson in the south as Ukrainian forces renew their offensive. In the Kharkiv and Donbas region, a series of Russian strongholds – Izyum, Kupyansk and Lyman – have rapidly fallen.
But Bakhmut is an exception. After taking nearby Lysychansk and Severodonetsk in June, the Russians are making progress here, taking a number of outlying areas and pushing towards the centre. Taking Bakhmut would open the route to the main cities in the Donbas, Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
Mercenaries from the Wagner Group, run by Vladimir Putin’s ally and confidante, Yevgeny Prigozhin, are playing a more of a leading role here than in other operations backed by tanks and artillery.
Wagner has fought on behalf of the Kremlin in a range in arenas including Syria, Libya, central Africa and, most recently, in the Sahel, where they replaced French forces in Mali. Their performance in Ukraine had been patchy, but in Bakhmut they appear to be doing well, especially in comparison to the poorly trained and armed Russian soldiers being thrown to the front.
“We have heard that Wagner is recruiting from prisons to serve in this country, they are desperate like all the Russian military,” says Ruslan, a sergeant in Ukraine’s 57th Motorised Infantry Brigade.
“But the ones we are seeing seem pretty experienced; we captured a guy who had been in Libya. Maybe they are on a special bonus to fight Bakhmut, they are certainly trying really hard.
“There are also some really poor troops, mainly from the LNR and DNR [separatist Luhansk and Donetsk republics]. They are sent out in the first wave in night-time operations, as sacrifices really. The more experienced ones come in behind them, or take different routes to try to come into the city. They have been particularly active in the eastern sector.”
Homes bombed during clashes with Russian forces in the village of Opytne near Bakhmut
Wagner-led Russian forces penetrated the southern suburbs of Ivanhrad and Optyne last week. These were retaken by the Ukrainian 93rd Brigade, which has rushed to this front, but some of the area has slipped back into enemy hands.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, has warned on several occasions of the seriousness of what’s unfolding in Bakhmut. This week he stressed “a very severe situation persists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the most difficult is near Bakhmut, but we are still holding our positions there.”
However, Wagner’s boss and friend of Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is cautious about claiming triumphs.
“The situation near Bakhmut is difficult,” he said on Telegram. “The Ukrainian troops are putting up decent resistance and the legend of the fleeing Ukrainians is just a legend. Ukrainians are guys with the same iron balls as us.”
Destroyed homes in the Zabachmutka district of Bakhmut
Elderly residents are helped through the ruins of Bakhmut to get supplies
