Ukrainians in a see Bakhmut going their way

Located in an unmarked building, well away from the front lines, a command center directing operations in the city of Bakhmut was high-tech and humming. Soldiers monitored video screens with live feeds of destroyed buildings and a cratered battlefield.

Six weeks after coming to help defend Bakhmut, the men of the Adam Tactical Group, one of Ukraine’s most effective battle units, were quietly confident they had turned the tide against Russian troops trying to encircle and capture it.

“The enemy exhausted all its reserves,” the commander, Col. Yevhen Mezhevikin, 40, said Tuesday, straddling a chair as artillery, air defense and intelligence-gathering teams worked around him.

Both nations have suffered heavy losses in Bakhmut.

Mezhevikin has stated that Russian assaults have slowed, and the imminent threat of encirclement has been thwarted. “The density of assaults dropped by several times,” he said. “Before, they could assault in all directions simultaneously and in groups of not less than 20, 30 or 40 people, but gradually it is dying down.”

Mezhevikin’s words are similar to those of Ukraine’s most senior military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhnyi, and his commander of ground forces in the east, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky. 

He also confirmed that new Ukrainian troops have completed their training.

“We are holding the enemy here for a bit more, and let them knock them back,” he said, discussing the new troops.

Mezhevikin went on to say that Russians who attempted to put the city under siege have lost momentum.

“When they try to reinforce their units, to rotate, they are being destroyed at the very start,” he added.