Vicious onslaught, the city of Bakhmut is a key Russian target in the embattled East. Now, Ukraine Armed Forces personnel digging trenches in the centre of Bakhmut city. Bakhmut been dubbed 'the meat grinder' due to brutal trench warfare & artillery duels. Russians must take Bakhmut to advance on key regional hubs of Sloviansk & Kramatorsk. Russians seeking to encircle Bakhmut by taking nearby villages & cutting off a key road. Russian forces been pummeling bakhmut since summer, a city once home to 70,000 people. Part of the Donetsk region in the East, Bakhmut is a wine-making and salt-mining city. Control over entire Donbas (Donetsk + Luhansk) a key objective for the Russian Forces. Luhansk 'liberated' by Russia, Donetsk has witnessed some of the war's heaviest fighting.