(CNN) Russian troops will have “the road open” to seize key cities in eastern Ukraine if they take control of Bakhmut, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in an interview with CNN while defending his decision to send Ukrainian forces into the besieged to keep city.
“It’s tactical for us,” Zelenskyy said, insisting Kiev’s military leadership was united in continuing to defend the city after weeks of Russian attacks had brought them to the brink of falling to Moscow troops.
“We understand that they could go further after Bakhmut. They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be an open road for the Russians to Bakhmut to other cities in Ukraine, towards Donetsk,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an exclusive interview from Kyiv. “That’s why our boys are there.”
A week-long onslaught by Wagner mercenaries, which has gathered momentum in recent days, has driven thousands out of the city and decimated its infrastructure. But Ukrainian troops have also stubbornly defended the area and stopped Russia’s advance.
Zelenskyy said his motivations for keeping the city were “so different” from Russia’s goals. “We understand what Russia wants to achieve there. Russia needs at least some victory – a small victory – even if it ruins everything in Bakhmut and just kills every civilian there,” Zelenskyy said.
He said if Russia were able to put “their little flag” on Bakhmut, it would help “mobilize their society to create this idea that they are such a powerful army.”
Ukrainian soldiers fire a self-propelled howitzer at Russian positions near Bakhmut as the battle for the city intensifies.
Although Bakhmut has no significant strategic value per se, its road links to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk – two densely populated, industrial urban centers in the northwest – mean that these cities will be the next in Russia’s crosshairs if they are able to take control .
Some commanders and junior officers have questioned the value of Bakhmut’s arrest amid a rising death toll and a growing risk that hundreds or even thousands of Ukrainian troops could be cut off.
But Zelenskyy dismissed those concerns, saying he had “never heard anything like it” from his commanders.
“We have to think of our people first and nobody should be surrounded or encircled – that’s very important,” he said.
“The military themselves see that we have to stay strong there, even though Russia has ruined the whole city and everything there,” Zelenskyy added. “Troops helped children, civilians to leave the city – even to this day, people left Bakhmut. We helped everyone.
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Nearly 4,000 civilians – including 38 children – remain in the stricken city, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said elsewhere on Tuesday. “We have special evacuation teams to help and armored vehicles. But people often stay in basements and don’t leave any information about their whereabouts,” she said in a televised address. “That makes the evacuation much more difficult.”
NATO intelligence, meanwhile, estimates that Russian forces lost at least five for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending Bakhmut, a military official with the alliance told CNN on Monday. The official warned that the 5 to 1 ratio was an educated estimate based on intelligence information.
Wagner troops have invaded the city since taking the city of Soledar in January. Should they gain control of Bakhmut, it would be a rare case of a town changing hands in a protracted and slow-moving war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region.
An adviser within Ukraine’s presidency, Mykhailo Podolyak, told CNN on Monday that Ukraine had two main goals in defending Bakhmut: buying time to replenish its forces and inflicting heavy casualties on Russian armies.
“It met its goals 1,000%,” he said. “Even if at some point the military leadership decides to retreat to more favorable positions, the fall of Bakhmut’s defense will be a major strategic success for the Ukrainian Armed Forces as a basis for future victory.”
Ukraine, meanwhile, is trying to integrate Western weapons systems and dozens of tanks into its operations after Zelenskyy successfully persuaded the US, Britain, Germany and a bloc of other European nations to step up military aid.
It precedes an expected Russian spring offensive that could include areas in central and northern Ukraine that Russia failed to capture in its first invasion last year.
CNN’s Tim Lister, Olga Voitovych and Vasco Cotovio contributed coverage.