Lhe Russian paramilitary group Wagner claimed responsibility for capturing the town hall of Bakhmout in eastern Ukraine on Monday, saying the conquest meant it now had control of the town “in a legal sense”, even as fighting continued there.
“In the legal sense, Bakhmout has been captured. The enemy is concentrated in the western areas,” Wagner chief Evgeny Prigozhin said on Telegram.
A video accompanying his message shows Mr. Prigojine waving a Russian flag with an inscription in honor of Vladlen Tatarsky, Russian military blogger fervent defender of the offensive in Ukraine killed Sunday by the explosion of a bomb. This attack in the historic center of Saint Petersburg also injured 25 people.
“The commanders of the units that took the town hall and the whole center will go and raise this flag,” Prigojine said. “Here is the private military company Wagner, here are the guys who took Bakhmout. From a legal point of view, it is ours”, he proclaims.
A city of some 70,000 inhabitants before the war, Bakhmout has been the scene of particularly violent fighting for months. Due to the length of the battle and the heavy losses suffered by both sides, the city has become the symbol of the struggle between Russians and Ukrainians for control of the industrial region of Donbass.
Russian troops have advanced in recent months north and south of the city, cutting several Ukrainian supply routes and seizing its eastern part. On March 20, Yevgeny Prigojine claimed that Wagner controlled 70% of Bakhmout.
Ukraine believes that the battle for Bakhmut is essential to contain Russian forces on the entire eastern front, even if analysts judge the strategic importance of the city limited.
In his Sunday evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that the situation in Bakhmout was difficult for his troops.
“It’s hot !”
“I am grateful to our warriors who are fighting near Avdiivka, Maryinka and Bakhmout. Especially Bakhmout! It is particularly hot there today!” Zelensky said.
The situation in the region “is still very tense,” said Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar on Sunday, before the announcement of Wagner’s chief. “The enemy is trying to engage not only Wagner’s fighters but also professional paratrooper units. Excessively high man casualties do not stop the enemy,” she added.
About 27 km from Bakhmout, in Kostiantynivka, a Russian bombardment on Sunday left six dead, three men and three women, and 11 wounded, according to the Ukrainian authorities.
These are “just residential areas”, “ordinary civilians of an ordinary city of Donbass” who were targeted, reacted President Zelensky.
AFP journalists saw a large crater in a courtyard and shattered windows from the ground floor to the upper floors in two 14-storey buildings, while the roofs of neighboring houses were shattered.
Police say Russia carried out a ‘massive attack’ in the morning, six S-300 and Hurricane missile strikes
“Sixteen apartment buildings, eight private residences, a kindergarten, an administrative building, three cars and a gas pipeline” were affected in total, she said.
Lilia, a 19-year-old psychology student met outside her badly damaged building with shards of glass still falling from the windows as she spoke, said she was “shocked”.
“I was very lucky not to have been home at the time,” she said.
Nina, a retiree, was looking at the damage done to her apartment on the ground floor of a Soviet-era building. She was also not at home when the explosions occurred.
“The interior doors and front door were blown out. An internal dividing wall broke. Not a single window remains,” she explained.
Mortar fire also killed two people in the Sumy region (northeast), according to Mr. Zelensky.
03/04/2023 01:40:11 – Moscow (AFP) – © 2023 AFP