Ukraine-Russia War: Wagner Group ‘has taken eastern Bakhmut’
Russia’s Wagner Group has claimed to have taken “all the eastern part” of Bakhmut, the Ukrainian town where fighting has raged for weeks.
Pressure has been mounting on Ukrainian troops trying to hold the town against Russian soldiers hoping to capture it no matter the cost.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner chief and Kremlin ally, said in an audio message released by his press service that “Wagner units have taken all the eastern part of Bakhmut, all that’s east of the Bakhmutka river” which bisects the town.
Ukraine has not yet commented, but president Volodymyr Zelensky has said the army is intent on defending Bakhmut and warned that Russians would have an “open road” into eastern Ukraine if the town was captured.
The battle for Bakhmut, a salt-mining town with a population of 80,000 before the fighting began, has been the longest and bloodiest in Russia’s operation.
Here’s some more on the claim by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner Group, that his troops have taken the eastern region of Bakhmut, a key Ukrainian stronghold.
Ukrainian authorities have not yet commented on Prigozhin’s claim.
However, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think-tank that closely monitors the fighting in Ukraine, said in its latest analysis that “Russian forces have likely captured the eastern part of Bakhmut, east of the Bakhmutka River, following a controlled Ukrainian withdrawal from eastern Bakhmut as of March 7.”
