CNN –
The head of Russia’s private military group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed Saturday his troops had taken complete control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut after months of brutal fighting.
“The operation to capture Bakhmut lasted 224 days,” he said in a video posted to Telegram, trying to secure a final victory in the city.
CNN could not independently verify Prigozhin’s claim, but denied an initial response from the Ukrainian side.
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar admitted in a Telegram post less than an hour after the Russian mercenary’s claim was published that the situation in Bakhmut was “critical”, but said that Ukrainian troops in a district at Bakhmut’s westernmost point are still present “held the defense”. Edge.
“As of now, our defenders control certain industrial and infrastructure facilities in the region and the private sector,” she said.
Prigozhin’s press service/telegram
Yevgeny Prigozhin holds a Russian flag in this image taken from video released on May 20, 2023.
Prigozhin added that his forces will hand over control of Bakhmut to the Russian military on May 25.
“By May 25, we will fully inspect it, create the necessary defense lines and hand it over to the military so that it can continue to work, and we ourselves will go to field camps,” he said.
While Russian forces have continued their slow street-by-street advance in the city itself for many months, Ukrainian forces have managed to recapture small areas held by Russian forces to the north-west and south-west of the city over the past two weeks .
If confirmed, Bakhmut’s capture would be Russia’s first win in months, but the city’s symbolism always outweighed its strategic importance.
Russian forces, reinforced by members of the Wagner mercenary group, suffered heavy casualties attempting to take the city.
There are no official casualty figures, but earlier this year a NATO source told CNN that they estimated that for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending Bakhmut, Russia lost five.
The battle also exposed an extraordinary rift between Russian forces: Prigozhin once accused a Russian brigade of abandoning its position in the city and repeatedly berated the Ministry of Defense for lack of ammunition.
By the beginning of 2023, the routes to Bakhmut gradually came under the control of Russian forces, and the struggle for the city turned into an uphill battle, with Ukrainian forces repelling dozens of attacks every day.
Instead of advancing directly towards the city centre, Wagner troops attempted to encircle the city from the north in a wide arc.
In January they captured the nearby town of Soledar and later took a number of villages and hamlets north of Bakhmut, making Ukraine’s defense of the town increasingly dangerous.
But even as Moscow’s troops closed in and most residents fled through dangerous evacuation corridors, a small group of Ukrainian civilians remained in the devastated city. About 70,000 people lived in Bakhmut before the war. In March it was less than 4,000.
The battle has been compared to the nature of fighting in World War I. Pictures from the area showed soldiers wading through mud while trees were destroyed by artillery fire.