After months of fighting in and around Bakhmut, Russian forces are set on capturing the city, which would be their first significant battlefield victory in some six months. Western strategists and officials suggest a Russian occupation of the city would be of more symbolic than strategic value. The eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut could fall “in the coming days,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday. His comments came after Russia’s private Wagner mercenary group claimed to control the eastern part of the city. Will this change Western military aid to Ukraine ?