Drone video shows scale of Bakhmut destruction

(23 Feb 2023)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4420961

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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bakhmut, Ukraine - 13 February 2023
1. Aerial of Bakhmut city, damaged buildings
HEADLINE: Drone video shows scale of Bakhmut destruction
2. Aerial of damaged buildings, empty streets
3. Aerial of camera descending into gutted building without roof
4. Aerial of damaged buildings
ANNOTATION: New aerial footage of Bakhmut shows how the war has turned the city of salt and gypsum mines in eastern Ukraine into a ghost town.
5. Push in on graffiti on wall of damaged building reading (Ukrainian): "Bakhmut loves Ukraine", camera tracks to damaged interior.
ANNOTATION: The footage shows no people, but they are still there somewhere out of sight trying to survive.
6. Aerial of badly damaged building
ANNOTATION: Bakhmut had a pre-war population 80,000.
7. Aerial of rubble and bricks at top of building.
ANNOTATION: A few thousand residents have refused or been unable to evacuate from the city.
8. Aerial of damaged buildings
ANNOTATION: From the air, the scale of destruction is plain to see.
9. Aerial of street, tracks to exposed interior of apartment, damaged kitchen
10. Aerial, camera rises out of gutted building
ANNOTATION: Entire rows of apartment blocks have been gutted exposing the ruins’ innards to the snow and winter frost.
STORYLINE:
Drone footage of Bakhmut showed how the longest battle of the year-long Russian invasion had turned the city of salt and gypsum mines in eastern Ukraine into a ghost town, its jagged destruction testament to the folly of war.

The footage - shot on February 13 - showed no people.

But they are still there - somewhere, out of sight, in basements and defensive strongholds, trying to survive.

Of the pre-war population of 80,000, a few thousand residents have refused or been unable to evacuate.

The size of the garrison that Ukraine has stationed in the city is kept secret.

Tire tracks on the roads and footprints on the paths covered with snow speak to a continued human presence.

Graffiti spray-painted on the charred, pockmarked outer walls of a blown-out storefront also showed people are or were there. “Bakhmut loves Ukraine,” it reads.

Next to that was the stencilled face of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, holding up two fingers in a V-for victory gesture. "God and Valerii Zaluzhnyi are with us,” reads writing underneath.

From the air, the scale of destruction becomes plain to see.

Entire rows of apartment blocks have been gutted, just the outer walls left standing and the roofs and interior floors gone, exposing the ruins’ innards to the snow and winter frost – and the drone’s prying eye.

For Ukrainians, Bakhmut is becoming etched indelibly in the collective consciousness.

Its defence has already been hailed in song. The track “Bakhmut Fortress," by Ukrainian band Antytila, has racked up more than 3.8 million views.

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