- Moscow says the city has been captured, Putin congratulates the troops
- Russia’s Wagner says it will withdraw from Bakhmut in five days
- Ukrainian forces advanced near Bakhmut
May 20 (Portal) – Russia on Saturday claimed it had fully captured the devastated eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, marking the end of the longest and bloodiest battle of the 15-month war.
The assault on the largely razed city was led by troops from the Wagner mercenary group, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said earlier in the day his troops had finally driven the Ukrainians out of the last built-up area inside the city.
The capture of Bakhmut — which refers to Soviet-era Russia as Artemovsk — would be Moscow’s first major victory in the conflict in more than a decade.
“Thanks to the offensive actions of the Wagner Assault Units, supported by artillery and aviation of the Southern Group of Troops, the liberation of Artemovsk was completed,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a one-line statement.
Kiev denied Prigozhin’s claim earlier Saturday, but received no immediate response to the Defense Ministry’s statement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated the troops on capturing the city and said those who distinguished themselves would receive awards, domestic Russian news outlets reported.
The claims came after a week in which Ukrainian forces on Bakhmut’s northern and southern flanks made the fastest advances in six months.
Prigozhin, who has repeatedly criticized Russia’s regular military for giving up territory previously captured by its men, said his own forces would withdraw from Bakhmut to rest in five days and hand over the ruins to the regular military.
“Today, at 12 noon, Bakhmut was completely trapped,” Prigozhin said in a video in which he appeared in combat fatigues in front of a line of fighters with Russian flags and Wagner banners. “We completely took over the whole city, from house to house.”
Ukrainian military spokesman Serhiy Cherevatyi responded to Prigozhin’s remarks ahead of Russia’s announcement by saying: “That’s not true. Our units are fighting in Bachmut.”
Division between Wagner and Russian forces
Regardless of whether the Ukrainian forces have left Bakhmut or not, they are slowly retreating inland, to clusters of buildings on the western outskirts of the city.
[1/3] Founder of private Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin makes a statement as he stands next to Wagner fighters in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in Bakhmut, Ukraine, in this still image from video released May 20, 2023. Press service of “Concord” /Handout via Portal
Meanwhile, in the north and south, they have captured large areas from Russian troops.
Russia has admitted it has lost some ground around Bakhmut over the past week, but dismisses Prigozhin’s claims that flanks around the city, guarded by regular troops, have collapsed.
Kiev says its goal at Bakhmut was to lure Russian troops into the city from elsewhere on the front lines, intending to inflict heavy casualties there and weaken Moscow’s defenses elsewhere ahead of a planned major counteroffensive.
The battle over Bakhmut has revealed a widening rift between Wagner, a mercenary force that recruited thousands of convicts from Russian prisons, and the regular Russian military. For the past two weeks, Prigozhin has been publishing daily video and audio messages denouncing Russia’s military leadership, often in rants peppered with profanities.
In Saturday’s video, he said that due to the “freaks” of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, “five times more men died than they should have.” He thanked Putin “for giving us this opportunity and great honor to defend our fatherland.”
Moscow has long claimed that taking Bakhmut would be a springboard for deeper penetration into the Donbass region, which it allegedly annexed from Ukraine. This made it the main target of a massive offensive that failed to capture significant territory elsewhere.
Prigozhin has acknowledged that Bakhmut, a former town of 70,000, despite its huge symbolic importance, has little strategic importance due to the scale of casualties in Europe’s bloodiest ground battle since World War II.
Kyiv prepares counter-offensive
Saturday’s claims came as Kiev prepared for its counteroffensive, the next major phase of the war after six months of keeping its forces on the defensive while weathering Russia’s major offensive.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended the G7 summit of major industrial powers in Japan on Saturday and received pledges of support, including a signal from Washington that it will now support training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets. So far, sending fighter jets has been taboo.
On the way to Japan, Zelenskyi stopped at an Arab summit in Saudi Arabia.
The Vatican said Saturday that Pope Francis had asked Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of Italy’s Bishops’ Conference, to conduct a peacekeeping mission to help end the war.
writing by Peter Graff; Edited by Giles Elgood
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.