KYIV, Ukraine — Russia’s protection ministry mentioned early Sunday that forces of the Wagner personal military, with the help of Russian troops, seized the Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut.
The ministry assertion on the Telegram channel took place eight hours after the same declare by Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin. Ukrainian authorities at the moment mentioned preventing for Bakhmut was persevering with.
The eight-month battle for the town in jap Ukraine is the longest and possibly most bloody of the battle in Ukraine.
Utilizing the town’s Soviet-era title, the Russian ministry mentioned, “Within the Artyomovsk tactical course, the assault groups of the Wagner personal army firm with the help of artillery and aviation of the southern battlegroup has accomplished the liberation of the town of Artyomovsk.”
There was no rapid remark from Ukrainian officers in regards to the newest declare.
In a video posted earlier on Telegram, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin mentioned the town got here beneath full Russian management at about noon Saturday. He spoke flanked by a couple of half dozen fighters, with ruined buildings within the background and explosions heard within the distance.
After the video appeared, Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesman for Ukraine’s jap command, informed The Related Press that Prigozhin’s declare “will not be true. Our models are preventing in Bakhmut.” In an announcement on Fb, the Ukrainian Common Workers mentioned that “heavy battles for the town of Bakhmut don’t cease.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, mentioned that “this isn’t the primary time Prigozhin has mentioned ‘we seized the whole lot and are dominating’.” He advised that the Wagner chief’s assertion was geared toward drawing consideration away from Zelenskyy’s current extremely seen journeys abroad, together with to the Group of Seven summit in Japan on Saturday.
Preventing has raged in and round Bakhmut for greater than eight months.
Russian forces will nonetheless face the huge activity of seizing the remaining a part of the Donetsk area nonetheless beneath Ukrainian management, together with a number of closely fortified areas.
It’s not clear which facet has paid a better value within the battle for Bakhmut. Each Russia and Ukraine have endured losses believed to be within the 1000’s, although neither has disclosed casualty numbers.
Zelenskyy underlined the significance of defending Bakhmut in an interview with The Related Press in March, saying its fall might enable Russia to rally worldwide help for a deal which may require Kyiv to make unacceptable compromises.
Analysts have mentioned Bakhmut’s fall could be a blow to Ukraine and provides some tactical benefits to Russia however wouldn’t show decisive to the end result of the warfare.
Russian forces nonetheless face the large activity of seizing the remainder of the Donetsk area beneath Ukrainian management, together with a number of closely fortified areas. The provinces of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk make up the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland the place a separatist rebellion started in 2014 and which Moscow illegally annexed in September.
Bakhmut, positioned about 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk, had a prewar inhabitants of 80,000 and was an essential industrial middle, surrounded by salt and gypsum mines.
Town, which was named Artyomovsk after a Bolshevik revolutionary when Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union, additionally was recognized for its glowing wine manufacturing in underground caves. Its broad tree-lined avenues, lush parks and stately downtown with imposing late nineteenth century mansions — all now diminished to a smoldering wasteland — made it a well-liked vacationer vacation spot.
When a separatist rebel engulfed jap Ukraine in 2014 weeks after Moscow’s unlawful annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, the rebels shortly received management of the town, solely to lose it just a few months later.
After Russia switched its focus to the Donbas following a botched try to seize Kyiv early within the February 2022 invasion, Moscow’s troops tried to take Bakhmut in August however had been pushed again.
The preventing there abated in autumn as Russia was confronted with Ukrainian counteroffensives within the east and the south, nevertheless it resumed at full tempo late final yr. In January, Russia captured the salt-mining city of Soledar, simply north of Bakhmut, and closed in on the town’s suburbs.
Intense Russian shelling focused the town and close by villages as Moscow waged a three-sided assault to attempt to end off the resistance in what Ukrainians known as “fortress Bakhmut.”
Mercenaries from Wagner spearheaded the Russian offensive. Prigozhin tried to make use of the battle for the town to increase his clout amid the tensions with the highest Russian army leaders whom he harshly criticized.
“We fought not solely with the Ukrainian armed forces in Bakhmut. We fought the Russian forms, which threw sand within the wheels,” Prigozhin mentioned within the video on Saturday.
The relentless Russian artillery bombardment left few buildings intact amid ferocious house-to-house battles. Wagner fighters “marched on the our bodies of their very own troopers” in accordance with Ukrainian officers. Either side have spent ammunition at a price unseen in any armed battle for many years, firing 1000’s of rounds a day.
Russian Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu has mentioned that seizing the town would enable Russia to press its offensive farther into the Donetsk area, one of many 4 Ukrainian provinces that Moscow illegally annexed in September.