2023-05-20 20:41:42
“On May 20, 2023, today, at noon, Bakhmout was taken in its entirety. This Saturday, Evgueni Prigojine, the boss of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, claimed the complete capture of this city in eastern Ukraine, the epicenter of the fighting since last summer. A few minutes later, kyiv denied and still claims to fight. “Our defenders control certain industrial facilities and infrastructure in the area as well as in the private sector,” Ganna Malia, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister, said on Telegram, while acknowledging that the situation on the ground is “critical”.
The adviser to the Ukrainian presidency Mykhaïlo Podoliak for his part assured on television that “Bahmut will be liberated, like all the other territories of Ukraine”. If confirmed, the capture of Bakhmout would allow Moscow to post a victory after a series of humiliating reverses. It would also intervene before a major counter-offensive that kyiv says it has been preparing for months. The announcement by Wagner’s boss also comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, where he has held meetings to increase international pressure on Moscow.
The longest and deadliest battle of the conflict
“The operation to take Bakhmout lasted 224 days (…) There was only Wagner here,” said Yevgeny Prigojine in a video broadcast by his press service on Telegram, “but no regular troops from the Russian army”, he added, while in open conflict with the military hierarchy in Moscow. According to him, Wagner will withdraw his men from the city from May 25 and leave its defense to the regular Russian army, standing ready after rotation and training for future operations from Moscow. Until then, “we will completely search the town, create defensive positions and hand it over to the military to deal with. On our side, we will go back to the basics,” he said.
Both sides suffered heavy casualties in Bakhmout, a town of some 70,000 before the Russian offensive, now largely devastated by fighting. Russian forces made slow progress there while taking nearby locations such as Soledar further north. In recent weeks they have controlled Bakhmout by more than 90%, no longer fighting within the city against a last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the West.
Ukraine, however, claimed this week the seizure of more than twenty square kilometers from Russian forces north and south of the city, endangering Wagner’s flanks, which are held by regular troops of the Russian army.
Russian soldiers accused of fleeing their positions
Yevgeny Prigozhin accused the Russian army soldiers of fleeing their positions near Bakhmout, while claiming that the general staff did not provide enough ammunition to his men on purpose to weaken his group. “We not only fought with the Ukrainian army in Bakhmout, but also with the Russian bureaucracy which put a spoke in our wheels,” he said on Saturday. Violently criticizing Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov once again, he estimated that five times as many men had died in Bakhmout “because of their whims”. “They will answer for their actions,” said the boss of Wagner.
Russia, which launched its troops to storm Ukraine on February 24, 2022, suffered serious setbacks on the front, being forced to withdraw from the vicinity of Kiev and then from the Kharkiv region in the northeast and the city of Kherson in the south. The front was essentially fixed throughout the winter, with most of the fighting taking place in Bakhmout. The two camps are now awaiting a major counter-offensive announced by the Ukrainian authorities, backed by Western arms deliveries.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said recently that his army “needs more time” to prepare for the assault.
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