Oleksandr Marchenko also told the BBC the remaining 4,000 civilians are living in shelters without access to gas, electricity or water. "Currently there is no communication in the city so the city is cut out, the bridges are destroyed and the tactics the Russians are using is the tactic of parched land," Mr Marchenko told the Today programme. "They want to destroy Bakhmut, they want to destroy the city like they did with Mariupol and Popasna," he said, referring to two cities in the east of Ukraine now under Russian control