Russian forces attack Ukraine residents fleeing ‘almost destroyed’ Bakhmut

Russia ramped up its attack on key target Bakhmut over the weekend, killing a woman trying to escape the besieged Ukraine city of more than 70,000.

In addition, two men were gravely injured by shelling Saturday while trying to cross a makeshift bridge out of the administrative center of a region in the Donetsk province, Ukrainian soldiers said.

As some Ukrainians tried to flee the “hell on earth” Bakhmut had become, others hunkered down while Russian forces moved closer to capturing the city — seen by Moscow as a key goal in its eastern push.

Only 4,000 people remain in Bakhmut, which deputy mayor Oleksandr Marchenko told the BBC was “almost destroyed,” like Mariupol, the city occupied by Russia early in the war.

A representative of the Ukrainian army cautioned it was too perilous for refugees to drive out of Bakhmut, and said they were fleeing on foot instead — with some using a pontoon bridge set up by the military.

The stopgap escape route came after Ukrainian forces destroyed two key bridges just outside of the city after Russian troops made inroads into the northern suburbs.

On Friday, observers said the drastic action may indicate Ukraine would abandon parts of the city. Troops may “conduct a limited and controlled withdrawal from particularly difficult sections of eastern Bakhmut,” while limiting Russian exit routes to the west, said The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

If Bakhmut fell to the Russians, Moscow would notch a rare recent victory in its prolonged invasion, rupturing Ukraine supply lines and setting the stage for its forces to press onward to other Donetsk strongholds.

Those who stayed in rubble-reduced sections of the city said they couldn’t even meet basic needs.

“Humanitarian (aid) is given to us only once a month. There is no electricity, no water, no gas,” Natalia Ishkova said Saturday.

“I pray to God that all who remain here will survive,” she added.

A United Nations spokesman on Friday said a limited number of humanitarian partners in the city were focusing on evacuating the most vulnerable residents.

Amid the emergency, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited an undisclosed location in eastern Ukraine to bestow troops with state decorations, according to footage posted by the Kremlin.

In southern Ukraine, meanwhile, the reported death toll from a Thursday missile strike on an apartment building in Zaporizhzhia rose to 11 — including a child, officials said.

Additional shelling Saturday killed two residents in the surrounding region, local officials said. In Nikopol, a 57-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man were killed after artillery shells and rockets were launched by Russia from across the Dnieper river.

Nearly 600 miles to the west in Lviv, near the Poland border, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with the European Union Parliament President Roberta Metsola and held talks with US Attorney General Merrick Garland and legal officials about the best way to fend off the invaders.

“All those responsible” for Russian war crimes, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, would be brought to justice at a newly proposed international prosecution center in The Hague, Metsola told reporters.

She also called on the West to continue to arm Ukraine forces in the east and south, and said Ukraine should start negotiations to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“Ukraine’s future is in the European Union. We will walk all the way with you,” Metsola tweeted Friday.

Ukraine had been put on a path towards EU membership in June — a process that could take years or even decades in times of peace. There was a renewed urgency to consider fast tracking the application amid the war, however.

Russia had invaded the former Soviet territory under false pretenses as it made overtures toward NATO, an alliance between 28 other European nations, the U.S. and Canada.

With Post wires