At least six dead, three injured in Russian strikes on eastern Ukraine city of Bakhmut

Kyiv: Russian strikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Wednesday killed at least six people and left three others injured, the regional governor said, as Russia continues to make advances on the city.

"The Russians bombed the city with a multiple rocket launcher, hitting a residential area. According to initial information, 12 residential buildings have been damaged and four are on fire," Pavlo Kyrylenko, a Ukrainian politician wrote on Telegram.

The strikes also caused damage to essential services in the city. Fires were reported at various places.

"On 10 August, at 11:40 a shelling took place in Bakhmut. Four fires started as a result of the shelling", the Donetsk region department of the State Emergency Service posted on Facebook.

Bakhmut is located in the Donetsk region of Eastern Ukraine, which was been a theatre of intense fighting between the Ukrainian and Russian forces ever since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February.

The city is a prime target for the Russians. If the Russians, analysts say, are to advance to the regional hubs of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

On 30 July Russia attacked Sloviansk but didn't succeed in capturing it. The Ukrainian defendants are dug in the key city in anticipation of fresh Russian attacks.

Sloviansk is of strategic importance in Moscow's ambitions to get complete control over the Donetsk region, one of its objectives of the current war.

Already 60 per cent of the Donetsk province is controlled either by Russian forces or pro-Moscow militias.

With the Russian attacks intensifying in the Donetsk province, the Ukrainian chances of mounting a counter-offensive in the Kherson region on the Dnieper river also seem to be fading.

With inputs from AFP

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