Wagner Group leader warns battle for Bakhmut is far from over ‘because there is strong resistance’

The struggle for control of Bakhmut, a Ukrainian town that has been the scene of fierce fighting for months, is not about to stop despite Russian advances, according to the director of the Russian paramilitary group WagnerYevgeny Prigozhin.

Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine has been the target of one of the longest Russian offensives since the operation began in Ukraine nearly a year ago.

The experts consider that the position is not strategic, but that the city has acquired a symbolic and political value, and is located in the industrial region of Donetsk which Moscow aspires to control in its entirety.

“Bakhmut is not going to be caught tomorrow, because there is strong resistance, shelling, a working meat grinder”, said Prigozhin in reference to the considerable losses on the battlefield. “We’re not going to celebrate yet,” he said.

Wagner – who has recruited thousands of prisoners to fight in Ukraine – has been leading the offensive in Bakhmut since the summer and recently managed to seize surrounding positions in an attempt to encircle the town.

Russian forces on Tuesday continued their attempts to break through Ukrainian defensive lines on the eastern front, where they met fierce resistance without making any significant gains.

“There is fighting in the southeastern part of Vuhledar. The situation is very difficult, the fighting is fierce, but we are seeing progress,” said the Russian-imposed interim leader in the region of DonetskDenís Pushilin, on Russian public television.

According to Pushilin, fighting is also taking place in the western part of Marine and that “there are possibilities” of being able to later occupy new positions in this part of the Donetsk front.

The towns of Vuhledar and Mariinka are located a few kilometers southwest of the city of Donetsk and have been the scene of violent armed clashes for several months.

Pushilin also alluded to the situation surrounding the city ​​of Bakhmut whose conquest is one of the main objectives of the Russians, but where for the moment -he said- “There are no indications that point to a withdrawal of the enemy.”

Bakhmut is one of the strongholds of Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk region and is considered the key to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the largest cities in the Donetsk region controlled by Kiev forces.

“The enemy is active in all directions, adding new and new reserves. Every day, between 300 and 500 new fighters arrive in Bakhmut from all directions. Artillery fire increases with each passing day,” said Prigozhin, director of the Wagner Group.

He added that in the north of the city fierce fighting is taking place and in this area there are no conditions to surround the enemy.

“It is stormed house by house, square meter by square meter (…). I don’t know where they are shooting that there is an encirclement and other things,” said Prigozhin, who attributes Russian advances in the front area to his mercenaries.

Spokesman for the Eastern Military Group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Serhiy Cherevaty, confirmed the intensity of the fighting near Bakhmut, saying that Ukrainian positions in this area were attacked 243 times during the day by Russian artillery and that there were a total of 37 fights.

As we approach the first anniversary of the start of the Russian military campaign in Ukraine, which next February 24press versions multiplied that the Russian army could launch a new major offensive similar to the start of the campaign, when it burst into the neighboring country from various directions.

However, Igor Girkin, the retired Russian officer who led the armed pro-Russian uprising in the Donbass in 2014 and sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by a Dutch court for the downing of flight MH17 which caused the death of 298 people, the possibility of a major offensive was ruled out today for the time being.

“Currently, the Russian Armed Forces nowhere have a clear superiority over the Ukrainian Armed Forces”Guirkin wrote on his Telegram channel.

According to him, the best the Russian army can do is to concentrate its forces and strike in one place, which will inevitably lead to “heavy losses and the depletion of resources accumulated during past mobilization and other preparations. “.

(With information from AFP and EFE)

Continue reading: