Russia trying to encircle Bakhmut amid mud of Ukraine's Donetsk

Russian forces have been trying to encircle the small mining city Bakhmut, as rain and an early spring thaw turn eastern Ukraine’s battlefields to mud, potentially leaving both sides hamstring as they try to secure an edge in the war.

The spring thaw, known as the “rasputitsa”, has a long history of ruining plans by armies to attack across Ukraine and western Russia because it turns roads into rivers and fields into impenetrable bogs.

In the Donetsk region near the front, Ukrainian soldiers hunkered down in muddy trenches after suddenly warmer weather softened the frozen ground.

“Both sides stay in their positions because, as you see, spring means mud. Thus, it is impossible to move forward,” said Mykola, 59, commander of a Ukrainian front-line rocket launcher battery as he watched a tablet screen for coordinates to fire.

In a trench, cut deeply into the ground in a zigzag pattern, Volodymyr, a 25-year-old platoon commander, said his men were prepared to operate in any weather.

“When we’re given a target that means we have to destroy it,” he said.

Russia is trying to encircle Bakhmut and force Ukraine to pull out its garrison. That would give Moscow its first major prize in more than half a year following one of the bloodiest phases of the war so far – a relentless Russian assault that began in the depths of winter when the ground was frozen.

“The enemy is constantly destroying everything that can be used to protect our positions for fortification and defence. Our soldiers defending the area around Bakhmut are true heroes,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.

Russia, benefiting from hundreds of thousands of reservists who were called up late last year, has intensified its attacks on several locations along the front in the east.

Western countries say several Russian assaults have failed, but their troops have made clear, if slow, progress north and south of Bakhmut as they try to cut off Ukrainian forces inside the ruined city, which once was home to about 75,000 people.

“Vicious battles are going on there. The command is doing everything it can to stop the enemy from advancing through our territory,” Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern military command, told Ukrainian television as he described the situation around Bakhmut.

For its part, Moscow said on Monday that it had destroyed a Ukrainian ammunition depot near Bakhmut and shot down US-made rockets and Ukrainian drones. It was not possible to independently confirm the reports.

Meanwhile, a Russian attack with Iranian-made drones early on Monday killed two people and wounded three in the western Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi, its mayor Oleksandr Symchyshyn said.

The victims were 21-year-old Vladyslav Dvorak and 31-year-old Sergiy Sevruk, Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on Facebook.

The Russian army said it hit a special operations command centre near the city of Khmelnytskyi.