‘You’re just meat for Putin…and we’re the meat grinder’: Ukrainian soldier says ‘conveyor belt’ of Russian troops being mowed down as Battle of Bakhmut descends into ‘WWI hell’

The Battle of Bakhmut has descended into a hellish landscape reminiscent of World War I, as Putin throws troops into a battle dubbed the “meat grinder.”

Day and night, Russia is barricading Ukrainian trenches in the city – once home to 70,000 people, now little more than a ruin – with artillery before troops launch frontal assaults on machine gun nests.

The no-man’s land between the front lines is now riddled with shell holes, shell-torn tree skeletons and corpses of dead soldiers in eerie echoes of Passchendaele, Ypres or the Somme more than 100 years ago.

“They are just meat for Putin,” a commander named Kostyantyn told the FT during a visit to the front lines. “And Bakhmut is a meat grinder. for what? One hell of a meter from our country.”

The soldier is being treated by medics, with reports suggesting both Ukraine and Russia are suffering heavy casualties in the city

It’s a battle that has been raging since May, which began when Russian troops marched through the Donbass on Putin’s orders to “liberate” the region that Moscow claims as its own.

The city lies at an important confluence of supply routes and, at least at the start of the fighting, was seen as a key base for attacks further into the Donbas – particularly on the nearby cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Now, however, the struggle is more symbolic than practical. Most analysts agree that the blood price Russia paid to capture Bakhmut – believed to be more than 100 soldiers per day – is not worth the value of the conquest.

But Putin promised the Russian people the liberation of Donbass. And the path to this goal – however fantastic – leads via Bakhmut. So the show must go on.

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s dreaded mercenaries of the Wagner group were said to have been in charge for at least the last few months.

Having been victorious in the Battle of Mariupol with Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechen mercenaries earlier in the war, Prigozhin appears to have taken the mission to Bakhmut to strengthen his personal standing with Putin.

At least that effort appears to have been successful: Russia officially recognized Wagner’s existence and allowed its leader to settle in a slew of new skyscrapers.

A Ukrainian artillery piece opens fire on Russian lines near the town of Bakhmut, where fighting has been described as “hell” and the worst of the war yet

Soldiers from Ukraine’s Karpaten Sich battalion, made up of Kiev volunteers, are deployed to Bakhmut as heavy fighting rages in the city

A Ukrainian tank crew repairs their vehicle and prepares for battle near the front line in Bakhmut in the eastern Donbass region

But the effort cost Wagner dearly. Prigozhin is forced to recruit murderers and rapists from prisons to join the fight.

After withdrawing from Kherson in the south, it appears that Russia’s regular army has reinforcements, as many units that are supposed to defend the city have been transferred to the Donbass front.

Ukraine also sent units that fought in the Battle of Kherson to defend positions around Bakhmut, greatly escalating the battle.

Troops now stationed there, some of whom experienced Russia’s massive artillery bombardment, which devastated Mariupol and Lysychansk early in the war, among others, as the most intense they had ever witnessed.

Christopher Miller, who visited the city he once called home for the FT, said there was rarely five seconds between each shell explosion and the sky was shrouded in smoke.

While neither side is ready to publicly acknowledge the human toll of the battle, Miller said, “both are clearly suffering heavy casualties.”

Despite the heavy fighting, Russian gains were minimal.

A Ukrainian soldier wounded in conflicts in the Russian-Ukrainian war is being treated in Bakhmut Hospital

The front line has not changed more than a few meters in recent weeks, and Ukraine says the approaching winter is likely to slow it down further.

Temperatures in Ukraine are already regularly below freezing, which means the ground is hard and difficult to dig.

This means that the advancing Russian forces are unable to dig out defensive positions and are heavily exposed to artillery as most of the natural and artificial cover has already been torn to pieces.

Lidiya Vasylenko, a Ukrainian military press officer, said that even when Putin’s forces succeed in gaining ground, they are usually forced to retreat soon after.

Both Vasylenko and Machine Gun Kostyantyn don’t expect the city to change hands in the coming months, meaning there’s no sign of an end to the hell the troops are facing any time soon.