2023-05-21 04:55:00
The leader of the Russian mercenaries, Yevgueni Prigozhin, affirmed yesterday that his troops captured the city of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine and the scene of fighting for months, but Kiev assured that it continues to fight there, although it described the situation as “critical”. .
If confirmed, Bakhmut’s capture would allow Moscow to score a victory after several humiliating setbacks. It would also come ahead of a counter-offensive that Ukraine claims to have been preparing for months.
Prigozhin’s announcement also coincided with the visit of Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky to Hiroshima, Japan, for the G7 summit, where he wants the international community to intensify its pressure on Moscow and provide his country with more powerful weapons.
“On May 20, 2023, today, at noon, Bakhmut was taken in its entirety,” Prigozhin announced in a video released by his press service on Telegram, where he is seen in front of armed men waving a Russian flag, surrounded of dilapidated buildings.
“The operation to take Bakhmut lasted 224 days. Here was only Wagner” and none of the regular troops of the Russian army, added Prigozhin, who has been in open conflict with the Russian military hierarchy for months.
However, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar said on Telegram that Ukrainian defenders continued to control “some industrial facilities and infrastructure in the area, as well as the private sector”, even though “the situation is critical”.
The spokesman for the Eastern Group of Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Serhi Cherevati, also denied the takeover of the city, who assured that his forces continue to fight in the city, reports the Ukrainian agency Unian.
“Our units are located in the southwestern part of the city, defending our positions and preventing their capture by the enemy. It is in the interest of Russia to disseminate this kind of information because it has not taken the city for nine and a half months and it is suffering colossal losses,” he declared.
The latest assessment of the Russian Ministry of Defense, published yesterday, still does not confirm the alleged seizure of Bakhmut, and limits itself to reporting that “assault detachments are fighting for the western part, in the Bogdanovka and Yagodnoye areas,” explained a military spokesman, General Igor Konashenkov, in comments collected by the Russian agency Tass.
According to Prigozhin, Wagner will withdraw his members from the city as of May 25 and will leave the defense of the municipality in the hands of the Russian army, remaining at its disposal for future operations in Moscow.
“Until May 25, we will fully search the city, create defensive positions and transfer it to the military for them to deal with. For our part, we will go back to basics,” Prigozhin declared.
Threats to the General Staff. Both sides recorded heavy losses in Bakhmut, a city that before the Russian offensive had some 70,000 inhabitants and is now largely torn apart by fighting. Russian forces advanced there slowly, taking neighboring towns such as Soledar further north. In recent weeks, they controlled more than 90% of Bakhmut, and fighting was concentrated against a stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance in the west of the town.
However, Ukraine announced this week that it had seized more than 20 square kilometers from Russian forces north and south of the city, endangering Wagner’s flanks, supported by regular Russian army troops.
Yevgeny Prigozhin accused Russian army soldiers of abandoning their positions near Bakhmut, claiming that the General Staff was deliberately not supplying his men with enough ammunition to weaken his group. “We have not only fought against the Ukrainian army in Bakhmut, but also with the Russian bureaucracy that put stones in our way,” Prigozhin launched yesterday.
Criticizing, once again, the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, Prigozhin considered that a five times higher death toll was recorded in Bakhmut “because of his whims.”
“They will answer for their actions,” the Wagner boss said.
Russia, which sent its troops to storm Ukraine on February 24, 2022, suffered several defeats at the front, and was forced to withdraw from the surroundings of Kiev, the Kharkiv region in the northeast, and the city from Kherson, in the south. During the winter, the front remained static for the most part and the bulk of the fighting was concentrated in Bakhmut. Now both sides are awaiting a major counter-offensive announced by the Ukrainian authorities, thanks to Western arms deliveries.
Zelensky recently declared that his army needed “more time” to prepare for such an assault.
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