2023-05-18 23:19:19
The head of the Russian Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, revealed that the entire Ukrainian city of Bakhmut has not yet been controlled, and that fierce battles are now taking place in one of the city’s neighborhoods.
In an audio statement posted on the Wagner Group account on his Telegram account, the head of the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization, said.
Ukrainian gains
- Ukraine announced new gains on the ground in the fierce fighting around Bakhmut, in the latest gains that seem to indicate a shift in the battlefield in the region after a months-long Russian offensive.
- Kiev said last week it had stepped up pressure on Russian forces in the north and south of Bakhmut, but added that Russia had continued to send more soldiers, including paratroopers.
- Soldiers from an anti-aircraft unit watch the battles on tablets from their posts outside the city, as shells reverberate nearby.
- “Now that we have started to advance, they (the Russians) are bombing all the paths leading to the outposts so that our armored vehicles cannot deliver soldiers, ammunition and other items,” said Petro Boudaro, the unit’s commander.
- “The enemy conducts (aerial) reconnaissance daily. They carry out frequent sorties,” said a Ukrainian soldier who went by the nom de guerre Barber. “This time, at this moment, they are sending more Lancets (the Russian military march). We are trying to operate, we are trying to monitor them and of course we are trying to destroy them,” he added.
- The anti-aircraft unit said its location could not be revealed for security reasons.
Moscow sees the city of Bakhmut as a stepping stone towards controlling the rest of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. The city had a population of about 70,000 people before the Ukrainian war, which began about 15 months ago.
Ukrainian officials point out that the advance around Bakhmut is not part of a broader counter-offensive planned by Kiev to push back Russian forces.
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