Wagner makes progress in Bakhmut while Ukraine prepares a defence

During the 58th week of the conflict, Russian soldiers led by mercenaries from the Wagner Group captured Bakhmut's eastern city centre. Nonetheless, Ukrainian troops continued to fight off the Russian force, and their commanders claimed that the Russian attack was now obviously losing steam.

Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers finished their overseas training in preparation for a possible counteroffensive later this month as pro-Russian population evacuated southern seized territory.

On March 31, Wagner mercenaries advanced into Bakhmut's centre. They were within 400 metres (1,300 feet) of the town hall, according to geolocated video.

Geolocated video showed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the creator of Wagner, hoisting the Russian flag over the city hall two days later, following an overnight conflict that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as "particularly heated." According to the law, Bakhmut has been kidnapped, according to Prigozhin's voice message.

Also, it was believed that Wagner had achieved total control of the AZOM industrial complex.

On April 4, Russian military bloggers said that Wagner troops had taken control of the Bakhmut-1 railway station. On April 3, Russian forces had probably advanced in southern Bakhmut closer to the Avangard Stadium.

As he indicated "similar choices" will be taken in Bakhmut as the situation changed, Zelenskyy seemed to calm Ukrainians fearful of a repetition of the Mariupol siege.

2,000 Ukrainian troops were captured from the Azovstal complex last year after being told to surrender and being encircled by Russian forces.

Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesperson for Ukraine's eastern army, claimed that despite this, Russia's assaults were less frequent.

On April 1, Cherevaty stated, "If before the occupants rushed our positions 35 to more than 50 times a day, in recent days their number has reduced from 17 to 25." "The enemy's'metre by metre' tactics won't be able to alter appreciably... Moreover, as the Kharkiv operation shown, these enemy-occupied square metres swiftly return to us.