- Wagner’s Prigozhin says his troops raised the flag at Bakhmut
- Ukrainian officials say the defenders are still fighting
- Russia wants to move tactical nuclear weapons to western Belarus
- Blinken urges Lavrov to release the US reporter
KIEV, April 3 (Portal) – Fighting for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut remained “particularly hot,” said President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, giving no indication that the city had finally fallen to Russia, as claimed by the founder of the Wagner mercenary force.
Yevgeny Prigozhin said his troops, who for months tried to surround and capture the bombed-out city, hoisted a Russian flag on its administrative building.
“From a legal point of view, Bakhmut has been taken. The enemy is concentrating on the western parts,” Prigozhin said in an audio message published on Sunday on his press service’s Telegram account.
But there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut, a town of 70,000 before the Russian invasion began over a year ago, had fallen into Russian hands.
Prigozhin has previously made claims that were premature.
“Thank you to our soldiers fighting in Avdiivka, Maryinka and Bakhmut,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Sunday. “Especially Bakhmut. It’s particularly hot there.”
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar had previously described the situation around the city as “tense”. Ukrainian forces defended their positions and Russian forces paid little attention to casualties as they attacked, Maliar said.
Portal could not verify the battlefield reports.
COMPOSITIONS IN THE CITY CENTER
Ukrainian military commanders said their own counteroffensive – supported by newly delivered Western tanks and other hardware – was not far off, but stressed the importance of holding Bakhmut in the meantime.
Prominent Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said the fighting engulfed the center of Bakhmut. Ukrainian forces had repelled 25 enemy attacks, but Russian forces had taken the AZOM metal works, which Ukrainian troops had defended for days.
“The enemy is attacking the city center from the north, east and south, trying to take complete control of the city,” Zhdanov, who has close ties to the Ukrainian military, said in a video posted on YouTube.
In Russia on Sunday, a well-known military blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed by a bomb blast at a cafe in St. Petersburg in what appears to be the second assassination attempt on Russian soil of a person closely linked to the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s state investigative committee said it had launched a murder investigation into the blast, which injured 25 people.
It was not immediately known who was behind the murder. Wagner’s Prigozhin said he “wouldn’t blame the Kiev regime for this,” but another top Russian official pointed the finger at Ukraine without providing any evidence.
An adviser to the President of Ukraine said that “domestic terrorism” was breaking out in Russia.
nuclear threat
Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year in what it calls a “special military operation,” claiming Kiev’s ties to the West are a security threat. Since then, tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers have been killed on both sides. Russia has destroyed Ukrainian cities and forced millions to flee. It claims to have annexed nearly a fifth of Ukraine.
Kiev and the West are calling the war an unprovoked attack to subdue an independent country.
In warnings to the West against arming Ukraine, Russian officials are increasingly playing up the risks of using nuclear weapons in the war, saying last month they would station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus.
Russia will bring these tactical nuclear weapons near Belarus’ western borders, Russia’s envoy in Minsk said on Sunday, placing them on NATO’s cusp to further escalate Moscow’s standoff with the West.
The weapons “will be transferred to the western border of our Union State and will increase the possibilities of ensuring security,” Russian Ambassador to Belarus Boris Gryzlov told Belarusian state television.
“This will happen despite the noise in Europe and the United States.”
Russia’s arrest of a US journalist remained another major diplomatic focus between Moscow and Washington.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday, called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who said Washington should not politicize the case.
Russia’s FSB security service said Thursday it had arrested Gershkovich and accused him of gathering information on a Russian defense contractor that was a state secret.
“Secretary Blinken has expressed the United States’ grave concern at the unacceptable detention of a US citizen journalist in Russia. The Secretary of State called for his immediate release,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement, which did not mention Gershkovich by name.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Lavrov told Blinken it was unacceptable for Washington to politicize the case, adding Gershkovich’s fate would be decided by a court. He reiterated Russia’s claim, which it has provided no evidence, that the journalist was “caught in the act” last week.
The Wall Street Journal has denied that Gershkovich was spying. The White House has described the espionage charge, which carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years, as “ridiculous”.
Reporting by Nick Starkov and Ron Popeski; Additional reporting from Lidia Kelly, Mark Trevelyan and Felix Light; Writing Lincoln Feast; Adaptation by Stephen Coates
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