Igor Girkin, a former ally of Vladimir Putin, is now publicly warning of an imminent “military defeat” of the Russian army.
In the city of Bakhmut, disputed for months, a decision may be imminent: the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, declared on Monday that he has conquered the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut “in the legal sense”. Via Telegram, he claimed to have raised the Russian flag at City Hall.
Read more: Wagner’s mercenaries declare capture of Bachmut
Kiev denies that the fighting is continuing unabated. “I am grateful for our fighters who are fighting near Avdiivka, Mariinka and Bakhmut. Especially Bakhmut! It is particularly difficult there today,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said late on Sunday.
Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a video that was supposed to show him with a Russian flag at Bakhmut’s town hall. It was released on April 3, 2023. Concord Press Service/Brochure via Portal
Although the Wagner mercenaries in Bakhmut could continue to advance and the southern community of Avdiivka was on the verge of being surrounded by Russian troops, the Kremlin’s widely advertised offensive appears to have almost failed.
O Battle of Bakhmut it is the longest of the year-long Russian offensive in Ukraine. The city, which had a population of 70,000 before the outbreak of war, is largely destroyed and deserted after months of fighting. The municipality of only moderate strategic importance in the industrial region of Donbass, however, has acquired a high symbolic importance in view of the months-long fighting that resulted in heavy losses for both sides.
“Offensive Failure”, “Imminent Defeat”
“Russia’s winter offensive has failed,” the British Ministry of Defense wrote in its daily situation report on Saturday. On several axes of the Donbass front, the Russian armed forces made only small gains at the cost of tens of thousands of casualties and largely threw away their temporary advantage in personnel from the “partial mobilization” in the autumn.
Read more: Secret Service: “Russia’s Winter Offensive Failed”
A former ally of Vladimir Putin now goes even further. Former separatist leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Igor Girkin, warned on Sunday on his Telegram channel, according to “Newsweek”, that Russian troops in Ukraine are heading for a “military defeat”.
As a nationalist, Girkin supports the invasion of Ukraine, but his criticisms of the implementation and the Kremlin are growing. In their propaganda, the state-controlled media “covers up” the really dire situation in Ukraine, he complains.
This “lack of true information” has blinded Russia to the seriousness of the situation: “It has an extremely negative impact on the situation of the whole country, of our entire state. I am not afraid to say that we are heading towards military defeat”, he is quoted in full.
internationally wanted
Igor Girkin is a former Russian intelligence officer FSB or GRU and was one of the military leaders of the breakaway People’s Republic of Donetsk in 2014. He is believed to be one of the main perpetrators behind the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 and was found guilty by the commission of inquiry. 298 people died when the plane crashed.
Since then, Girkin has been sought after internationally. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense intelligence department recently placed a $100,000 bounty on the Russians’ heads for allegations of war crimes. He also publicly appears under the pseudonym Igor Strelkov.
Read more: Ukraine offers $100,000 bounty per man
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Nav Account rcp Time03/04/2023, 21:35 | Act: 04/03/2023, 21:36