Bakhmut

temporarily unavailableas of 2026-09-271571Donechchyna

Photo: State Border Guard Service of Ukraine · CC BY 4.0 · source

A city of salt and sparkling wine, founded in 1571 as a watchpost on the Bakhmutka.

Bakhmut is one of the oldest cities of Donetsk region: a fort of 1571, salt works from the 17th century, and from the 1950s a sparkling wine plant in salt galleries 72 metres underground. It held 19th-century buildings and a museum with a Cossack-era collection. Nine months of fighting in 2022–2023 erased the city almost completely. In the battle for Bakhmut, battalion commander Dmytro Kotsiubailo "Da Vinci" was killed on 7 March 2023, and on 12 September that year Oleksandr Svyshch "Farsh" of the Third Assault Brigade; the Honor company of Serhiy Filimonov "Filia", who now leads the Da Vinci Wolves battalion, also fought for the city: on 11 April 2023 it repelled a Wagner attack on the last road into Bakhmut — the one called both the road of life and the road of death — and held the 500-metre treeline that kept it open. At the end of March 2023 the Belarusian volunteer Daniil Liashuk "Mojahed" was killed on this axis; the medical service of the Da Vinci Wolves battalion was run here by Alina Mykhailova.

Under occupation since 20 May 2023.

Chronicle

• 1 August 2022 — The assault on the city began.
• Autumn 2022 — The weight of the assaults fell on Wagner units with recruited convicts — the tactic of "meat assaults".
• January 2023 — After Soledar fell the city was enveloped from the north; supply ran along a single "road of life" to Chasiv Yar.
• 7 March 2023 — Dmytro Kotsiubailo "Da Vinci" was killed in the fighting for the city.
• 20 May 2023 — Russia announced full control over the ruins of the city.
• Summer–autumn 2023 — Ukrainian counter-attacks on the flanks: Klishchiivka and Andriivka.