In recent weeks, Ukrainian troops have been pushed back in the battle for Bakhmut.
(Photo: dpa)
Bachmut The head of the Wagner mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is unlikely to withdraw his units from the bitterly contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine after all. He had been promised the necessary weapons and ammunition to continue the fight, he said on Sunday on the short message service Telegram. During the night he was assured of as much equipment as was necessary to take the city.
Only on Friday did Prigozhin threaten to withdraw his mercenaries from Bakhmut, citing a lack of supplies from the military leadership as the reason. His mercenaries would therefore have to retreat to supply camps on May 10 and hand over their positions to the Russian army, he said, exacerbating the long-simmering dispute with military leadership and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The withdrawal would have come a day after the military parade in Moscow celebrating the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany.
Prigozhin’s accusation that his troops are not supplied with sufficient ammunition is not new. He repeatedly publicly accused Shoigu and the military leadership of incompetence and said that ammunition was being deliberately withheld from his Wagner troops out of personal dislike for him. Just a few days ago, he publicly insulted Shoigu and his confidante, Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov.
“Overnight we received a combat order for the first time in all this time,” Prigozhin said in an audio message on Telegram. “We have been promised as much ammunition and weapons as we need to continue further operations. We have been promised that whatever is needed to prevent the enemy from cutting us off (from supplies) will be deployed on the flank.”
Prigozhin also said the Defense Ministry had assigned General Sergey Surovikin to work alongside Wagner units. “This is the only man with an army general’s star who knows how to fight,” added the mercenary boss. Surovikin commanded the Russian campaign in Ukraine for several months before General Staff Gerasimov was given overall command.
The Wagner boss recently criticized the Russian leadership very clearly.
(Photo: dpa)
The Wagner troop leads the attacks on Bakhmut, costing both sides of the war, which, after several setbacks, is a strategically important target for Russia. Ukraine assumes that Russia intends to capture Bakhmut by May 9 – the day of the traditional Victory Parade.
In recent weeks, Ukrainian troops have been pushed back in the battle for Bakhmut. However, they remain in the city to inflict as many casualties as possible along the 1000-kilometer front line before their own planned counter-offensive.
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