SAE4 - Ghost Town (Bakhmut)

The Battle of Bakhmut is an ongoing series of military clashes near the city of Bakhmut between the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Armed Forces of Russia during the larger Battle of Donbass. The shelling of Bakhmut began in May 2022, the main assault on the city began on August 1. The main strike force is primarily made up of mercenaries from the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group, supported by regular Russian troops and separatist elements of the DPR and LPR. As of late 2022, following the Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kharkiv and Kherson, the Bakhmut-Soledar front became an important center of the war, being one of the few front lines in Ukraine where Russia continued to advance. Attacks on the city intensified in November 2022 when the advancing Russian forces were reinforced by units redeployed from the Kherson Front along with newly mobilized recruits. By this time, much of the front line had become a trench warfare, with both sides suffering heavy casualties without any significant