Moscow-. Russian forces took full control of the city of Artiomovsk (Bakhmut for Ukrainians) in the Donetsk People’s Republic today, Wagner Group chief Evgeny Prigozhin reported.
As Prigozhin reported on his Telegram channel, Artiomovsk fell completely under the control of Russian army assault groups, so from May 25 the Wagner units will hand over control of the city to regular members of the armed forces.
Known for decades as Artiomovsk and still so called in Russia, the town of Bakhmut has been the scene of bloody fighting for months because of its importance in supplying Ukrainian troops in the Donbass.
Artiomovsk is located north of the city of Gorlovka and only 50 kilometers from Donetsk, the capital of the territory of the same name.
Since February 24, 2022, Russia has been conducting a special military operation in eastern Ukraine which, according to President Vladimir Putin, aims to demilitarize and denazify the neighboring country and prevent attacks by the Kiev regime against the civilian population of the People’s Republics. from Lugansk and Donetsk.
During the military operation, Russian forces took control of the Zaporozhye and Kherson Oblasts, which became part of the territory of the Russian Federation along with the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
At the time, the West ignored Moscow’s proposals to create a common security space in Europe and to prevent the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from advancing to the borders of the Eurasian giant, which saw this as a direct threat to its national security.