“We have achieved our goals”. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner’s Russian mercenaries, proposes to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he cease the war in Ukraine and focus on consolidating the Russian presence in the occupied areas. Russia has proclaimed the annexation of 4 regions taken from Ukraine: Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The city of Kherson, occupied by the Russians in the initial stages of the war, has been under Ukrainian control for months. In other parts of the country, fighting continues.
“For the authorities (of the Russian Federation) and for society as a whole, it is necessary to put some form of courageous end point to the special military operation,” Prigozhin wrote on Telegram, in a message released by his press office and relaunched by Ukrainska Pravda.
“The ideal option – continues the head of Wagner – is to announce the end of the special military operation and inform everyone that Russia has achieved its objectives. And in a sense we have really achieved them. We have shot down a large number of soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and we can say that our task has been completed”. The Wagner has been engaged for weeks in the area of the city of Bakhmut, where the forces of Kiev were forced into an orderly withdrawal given the difficulty of obtaining regular supplies.
“Theoretically – Prigozhin continues – Russia has already reached a milestone by destroying a large part of the Ukrainian male population and intimidating the other part, which fled to Europe. Russia has cut off the Sea of Azov and a large part of the Black Seatook a large chunk of Ukrainian territory and created a land corridor to Crimea”. Now, he says, Russia needs to consolidate its presence in the conquered territories. Finally, according to Prigozhin, the war has caused a problem: “If first l ‘Ukraine used to be part of the former Russia, now it’s an absolutely oriented government as a nation.”
BOMBING – The death toll from the Russian bombing of a residential area in the Ukrainian city of Sloviansk has risen to eight civilians. The wounded are 21. Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote on Telegram. Among the dead is a two-year-old boy, pulled alive from the rubble, but later died in an ambulance. First lady Olena Zelenska mourned this today on Twitter.
ZELENSKY – “We destroy the Russian potential to prepare for the counteroffensive.” This was stated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in the usual evening video speech, after meeting the head of the Security Services, Vasyl Maliuk, and of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov.
“The key is the constant destruction of the occupiers, their logistics and all their potential in the occupied territories. These are the preparations for the counter-offensive,” Zelensky said.