2023-05-20 19:43:11
Prigozhin, the head of PMC Wagner, in a video (see below) announced that today at 12:00 Bakhmut was completely taken. The operation to capture Bakhmut lasted 224 days.
The last units belonging to the Ukrainian forces would withdraw in small groups during the night.
The terrible battle for the city lasted 224 days, in what was undoubtedly the bloodiest battle on European soil since 1945.
Prigozhin to Zelensky: “Today, when you see Biden, kiss him on the top of his head and say hello to him from me”
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— Donbass Devushka (@PeImeniPusha) May 20, 2023
“Today, May 20, around noon, Bahmut was completely captured,” Prigozhin said in a video posted to Telegram. In the video there are nine soldiers behind Prigozhin, with the ruins behind them. At the beginning of the video, Prigozhin, in field uniform, holds a Russian flag in his hands before handing it to one of the soldiers.
Prigozhin said Wagner’s forces would inspect the city and then hand it over to the Russian military on 25 May. The head of Wagner thanked generals Sergei Surovikin and Mikhail Mizintsev, who “made this difficult operation possible” e Vladimir Putin for giving him the high honor of defending the fatherland, Prigozhin stressed.
Reuters reports that “Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday that his Wagner Group soldiers had completed the capture of Bakhmut, but Ukraine has rejected that claim and said fighting was still ongoing.
The private military company believes that “now our fighters will concentrate on protecting the flanks in the vicinity of Bakhmut and returning those previously lost strongholds, otherwise the capture of Bakmut will play no role later, because Ukrainian forces may try to recapture the lost positions.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine consider Bakhmut one of the key links in the ring agglomeration of Donbass. And if the main link falls, the entire defensive chain will gradually crumble.
Will the army lose the positions won by PMC Wagner?
Many military experts say that the counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should now begin. Their military units are fully prepared for the offensive. Although our artillery and aviation are striking at the accumulation of manpower and equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, disrupting their concentration.
Zelensky and his company are very reluctant to attack, realizing that this offensive could end very badly for them. And after its failure, the entire Ukrainian front may crumble. But their Western curators are pushing the Ukrainians to the offensive, because for them the Ukrainians are just “cannon fodder” for the war with Russia.
Zelensky, for the sake of public relations with the West would have killed 50,000 people, three times as many wounded. Prigozhin did not disclose Wagner’s losses, but said the losses were five times greater due to the leadership of the Russian armed forces.
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