Bakhmut is obliterated.
As fighting around the city in eastern Ukraine rages on, drone footage taken by The New York Times on Friday captured the scorched buildings, destroyed schools, and cratered parks that now define Bakhmut. What looks like an early-morning haze spreading across the shattered skyline is the acrid smoke that hung heavy after another night of relentless shelling.
The Russians are declaring victory in this battle, the war’s longest and bloodiest. The Ukrainians, making gains on the outskirts, say the death of the city is not the end of the campaign to drive the Russians from the ruins, just one more phase in a catastrophic war.
The notion of a “winner,” however, defies what is so clearly lost — the many lives and homes in the once peaceful city, known for its salt-mines and sparkling wine, largely reduced to ashes. A few remaining civilians moved anxiously trying to find a safe path as the Russians fought in the neighborhood where the people were taking shelter. It was not immediately possible to know who the people are, where they are going and how they survived.
In a place filled with death and destruction, signs of life are the exception. President Biden said this weekend that around 100,000 Russian soldiers were killed and wounded in the battle for Bakhmut. Ukraine also suffered grievous losses in a fight described by both sides as a “meat grinder.”
Over the past year, the Ukrainian government urged residents to evacuate the city of nearly 80,000 and by March, it estimated that only around 4,000 people remained. As Russia stepped up its bombardment, humanitarian groups found working in the city impossible. Ukrainian forces continued to offer people safe transport out as recently as two weeks ago, according to soldiers, but some residents refused to leave.
As the last Ukrainian soldiers were driven into an ever smaller area near the western entrance of the city, the Russian military turned what was once a thriving residential neighborhood into a shooting gallery.
Russia’s shelling of Bakhmut began about a year ago.
It was not until December — after months of brutal artillery duels and deadly trench warfare — that Russian forces managed to enter the eastern outskirts of the city.
As temperatures dropped below freezing this winter, a team from The Times visited Bakhmut and found that the few remaining residents mostly lived in basement bunkers. They relied on volunteers to provide food and medical supplies, occasionally venturing out for firewood.
The Russians advanced slowly, block by block, razing many buildings to their foundations to deny the Ukrainians defensible positions.
By early May, the Ukrainians were largely confined to a patch of land smaller than Central Park. Russian forces intensified their bombardment, aimed at driving out the last Ukrainian soldiers. By late May, they had largely succeeded.
At the western entrance of Bakhmut, a group of artists in 2020 painted two large murals on the walls of high-rise buildings to offer the residents a sense of solace.
One depicted a mother holding her child aloft, sharing a moment of joy. They are both wearing garlands in their hair. The other mural depicted a father with his son on his shoulders playing with a toy plane set against a peaceful, clear blue sky.
The mural of the mother and daughter is gone along with the multistory building that served as its canvas and home to hundreds.
On Friday, the wall with the painting of the father and son still stood, but as the drone made a pass, an explosion could be seen just in front of the building — which is now empty, battered, and lifeless, like the city itself.
Video Production by Axel Boada.
