Russians close to Bakhmout center, says Wagner Group boss in video
The Russian soldiers are currently just over a kilometer from the center of Bakhmout, a city that Moscow troops have been trying to take since the summer, the boss of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, Evgueni Prigojine, announced on Saturday.
“It is the building of the municipal administration, the administrative center of the city”he said, pointing from the roof of a building to another building located in what he claims to be Bakhmout. “It’s 1.2 kilometers away”he said in a video broadcast by the press service of his company Concord. “This is the area, there is fighting going on. »
These remarks are unverifiable by an independent source in the immediate future. “The most important thing is to get the right amount of ammo and move forward”he hammered again, while he is in open conflict with the Russian military hierarchy, among other things about obtaining ammunition, essential, according to him, to continue the assault on Bakhmout.
Mr. Prigojine’s men are on the front line in the battle for Bakhmout, which has caused heavy casualties on both sides. The Russians have been seeking for several weeks to encircle this city, populated by some 70,000 inhabitants before the conflict, and have succeeded in cutting off several important roads for the supply of Ukrainian soldiers.
While observers doubt the strategic importance of Bakhmout itself, this battle – the longest since the start of the Russian offensive more than a year ago – has acquired symbolic value, both for Kiev and for Moscow, which would like to obtain a victory there after several humiliating reverses. The boss of the Wagner Group had also announced on Friday the opening of fifty-eight recruitment centers in forty-two cities in Russia, to try to reconstitute his troops, who are suffering heavy losses in eastern Ukraine.