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Russian troops ‘in bad order’ after being forced from southern flank of Bakhmut

Russian forces have withdrawn from their positions on the southern flank of Bakhmut “in bad order” over the last four days, according to Britain’s defence ministry.

In its daily intelligence bulletin, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the withdrawal had seen Ukrainian forces regain around a kilometer of territory.

It comes after Moscow acknowledged on Friday that its forces had fallen back north of Ukraine’s battlefield city of Bakhmut following a new offensive, in a retreat that the head of Russia’s Wagner private army called a rout.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky was visiting Rome on Saturday for talks with government officials and Pope Francis, who said in late April that the Vatican is involved in a peace mission to end the war.

It is his first trip to Italy since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year. His trip comes after a growing backlash to the European Broadcasting Union’s decision to block him from addressing Eurovision, which is being hosted in Liverpool on Saturday night on behalf of last year’s winners Ukraine.

The MoD said elements of a Russian brigade withdrew “in bad order” from their positions on the southern flank of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which is the scene of the war’s longest battle. It added that the brigade, a formation created in Autumn 2023, had been “dogged with allegations of poor morale and limited combat effectiveness.”

Elsewhere in Ukraine on Saturday, Russian attacks were reported to have injured three people in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, according to the city’s mayor.

Ukrainian servicemen fire a Partyzan multiple launch rocket system towards Russian troops near a frontline, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine May 12, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer
Ukrainian servicemen fire a Partyzan multiple launch rocket system towards Russian troops near a frontline in Zaporizhzhia region (Photo: REUTERS/Stringer)

Oleksandr Sienkevych said on his Telegram channel that Russian forces had targeted a local factory, with the damage spreading to nearby residential buildings, causing fires in three apartments and damaging an education centre.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Saturday that Ukrainian aircraft had struck two industrial sites in the Russian-held city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine with Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles supplied by Britain.

Britain on Thursday became the first country to say it had started supplying Kyiv with long-range cruise missiles, which will allow it to hit Russian troops and supply dumps far behind the front lines as it prepares a major counteroffensive.

British Defence Minister Ben Wallace said the missiles could be used within Ukrainian territory, implying that he had received assurances from Kyiv that they would not be used to attack targets inside Russia’s internationally accepted borders.

The Russian ministry said the missiles had hit a plant producing polymers and a meat-processing factory in Luhansk on Friday.

It also said Russia had downed two Ukrainian warplanes – an Su-24 and a MiG-29 – that had launched the missiles.

In its latest bulletin, the ministry also said Russian forces had gained control over another block in Bakhmut, which Moscow has been trying to capture for more than 10 months in an attritional artillery battle.

A Russian SU-34 warplane crashed in the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, TASS news agency reported, quoting emergency services, in the second such incident on Saturday after a helicopter was seemingly downed in the same region. Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports.

Additional reporting by Reuters.

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