The Russian paramilitary group Wagner said today it had taken the city of Bakhmut, but Ukraine said it still held the eastern city, the scene of fighting in recent months.
“In the legal sense, Bakhmut was captured. The enemy is concentrated in the western areas,” Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said on the Telegram platform.
In a video accompanying the message, Prigozhin raised a Russian flag with an inscription in honor of Vladlen Tatarsky, a Russian military blogger and supporter of the Ukrainian offensive, who was killed in an explosion on Sunday. The attack in the historic center of St Petersburg also left around 30 people injured.
“The commanders of the units that occupied the City Hall and the entire center will raise this flag,” said Prigozhin. “This is the Wagner private military company, these are the guys who took Bakhmut.” From a legal point of view, it is ours, ”he said.
A few hours earlier, the Ukrainian defense had stated the opposite: “the enemy did not stop the assault on Bakhmut. However, Ukrainian defenders courageously hold the city, repelling numerous enemy attacks,” the Ukrainian General Staff said on the social network Facebook, Sunday night.
Bakhmut, a pre-war city of about 70,000 people, has been the scene of fighting for months. Due to the duration of the battle and the heavy losses suffered by both sides, the city became the symbol of the struggle between Russians and Ukrainians for control of the industrial region of Donbass.
Russian troops have been advancing north and south of the city in recent months, cutting off several Ukrainian supply routes while taking control of the eastern part. On March 20, Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that Wagner controlled 70% of Bakhmut.
Despite several allies and analysts advocating that Ukrainian forces should abandon Bakhmut, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refuses to hand over the city, which has become a symbol of resistance to the Russian invasion, despite the fact that, in Sunday night’s speech , having recognized that the situation in Bakhmut was difficult for the country’s troops.
The Russian military offensive in Ukrainian territory, launched on February 24 last year, plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since the Second World War (1939-1945).
*With Lusa
