- EURO NEWS - Euronews with AP - MAY 23, 2023 -
Here's everything you need to know about the war in Ukraine for Monday 22 May 2023. Russia's mercenary group Wagner announced plans on Monday to leave Bakhmut by 1 June, less than two weeks after the leader of the group Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Russian army claimed victory over the eastern Ukrainian city on Saturday.
"In the western outskirts [of Bakhmout], the lines of defence are in place. So the Wagner group will leave Artiomovsk [the Soviet name of the Ukrainian city] between May 25 and June 1," Prigozhin said on Monday in an audio recording released by Wagner's press service.
The group said it will now leave the city in the hands of the Russian troops.
Despite the claimed victory, the rift between the mercenary group a the Russian army's leadership continues. Concluding his message, Prigozhin accused the army's leaders of leaving his men without ammunition and remaining too far back from the battlefront.
"O EIXO DO MAL LATINO AMERICANO E A NOVA ORDEM MUNDIAL"
"If there are not enough units of the Ministry of Defence (to occupy Bakhmut), there are thousands of generals [to do it], you have to form a regiment of generals, give them all guns, and everything will be fine," he said.
The claims follow months of bloody fighting in the city, which Ukraine claim hasn't come to a close yet. Ukrainian authorities have not recognised the loss of Bakhmut, and claim that its troops still hold part of the city.
Ukraine hits back at Russia's claims of victory over Bakhmut
Ukrainian officials acknowledge they now control only a small part of Bakhmut.
But, Ukraine says, their fighters' presence has played a key role in their strategy of exhausting the Russian military. And they say their current positions in the areas surrounding Bakhmut will let them strike back inside the 400-year-old city.
“Despite the fact that we now control a small part of Bakhmut, the importance of its defense does not lose its relevance,” said General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of ground forces for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. “This gives us the opportunity to enter the city in case of a change in the situation. And it will definitely happen.”
The fog of war makes it impossible to confirm the situation on the ground in Bakhmut. Russia’s defense ministry said Wagner mercenaries backed by Russian troops had seized the city, but Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Bakhmut was not being fully occupied.
In a video posted on Telegram, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed the city came under complete Russian control at about midday Saturday. Holding a Russian flag before a group of at least nine masked fighters in body army who were toting heavy weapons, Prigozhin proclaimed: “This afternoon at 12:00, Bakhmut was completely taken.”
More important for Ukraine has been the high numbers of Russian casualties and sapping of the morale of enemy troops for the the small patch of the 1,500-kilometre front line as Ukraine gears up for a major counteroffensive in the 15-month-old war.