“Bahmut is the oldest historical and cultural center of the Donetsk region, located on the banks of the Bakhmutovka River, about 65 kilometers northeast of Donetsk.”

This is how Bakhmut is described in Ukrainian online guide. Before the start of the large-scale Russian invasion of the neighboring country, about 71,000 people lived here.

Now neither the city nor its inhabitants practically exist.

“Bakhmut, Soledar, Marinka, Kremennaya… For a long time, there was not a single living place left on earth in these parts that was not destroyed by shells and fire. The occupiers actually destroyed Bakhmut, another city that the Russian army turned into scorched ruins,” said the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky in one of their December video messages.

The photographs coming from Bakhmut for a long time demonstrate only the total destructive power of the war. They are reminiscent of bombed-out Syrian cities. Such as Homs, where military planes practically left no stone unturned from houses. In Syria, Russia also contributed to this destruction.

Bloody battles have been going on for a long time on the outskirts of the city. In recent weeks, they have only intensified. The number of people who are killed and injured here every day is in the hundreds. News about the battles near Bakhmut also comes in daily. For example, this Tuesday, Ukraine reported that the Russians fired cannons at 20 targets on the front line in Bakhmut.

Before the war, Denis Hristov was a famous TV presenter. Now he is a volunteer: he takes people out of the hottest spots in Ukraine. Like Bakhmut.

The war in Bakhmut did not start on February 24th. Russian-backed troops invaded the city in the spring of 2014. Then he wore the name Artemovsk, which has been preserved since Soviet times. In the same spring, the Ukrainian army recaptured Artyomovsk, and since 2015 the war in eastern Ukraine has turned into a positional one.

Experts have repeatedly wondered about the reasons for the obsession of the Russians to master Bakhmut. The city has no important strategic importance, and all its infrastructure is still destroyed by bombing. And yet, there is now a bloody confrontation, the meaning of which, probably, to a greater extent is still symbolic.

Bakhmut is far from the only Ukrainian city that was significantly or almost completely destroyed as a result of the Russian invasion. For example, in Mariupol, about 90% of residential buildings were destroyed or damaged.

Bakhmut becomes a new symbol of total destruction. A couple of months ago, the governor of the city said that Bakhmut had left 90% of its inhabitants. In the photographs coming from these places, you can only occasionally see individual elderly people who are trying to survive on the ruins without water and food.