Russian troops are throwing all their forces to capture Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, but attempts to cordon off the city are unsuccessful, Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar said on the air of the telethon.

" There was a slight advance, but they pushed it out and today the enemy is trying to surround the city, and he is not succeeding,"

She stressed that the Russian troops cannot hold the captured positions, therefore they are concentrating their efforts on separate sectors of the front..

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Recall that the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Kirill Budanov, said that the Wagnerites so badly want to capture the city of Bakhmut due to the fact that the owner of their PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin and the commander of Russian troops in Ukraine Sergey Surovikin entered into an alliance. Now these two want to prove their strength. But Budanov noted that although the occupation of the city can improve enemy positions and open the way for the Russian Federation to other cities of Donbass, this operation is not strategically important..