Disagreements about Bakhmut’s capture of the city

The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut10 months under siege by his paramilitary units.

“Today at noon, the last redoubt of the Samoliot (Avioni) settlement in the city of Bakhmut was captured,” he said with a Russian flag in his hands. he posted the video on his Telegram accountaccompanied by several Wagner fighters.

Prigozhin pointed out that “the operation of capturing Bahmut, the ‘Bahmut mill’, lasted 224 days“.

“Started on October 8, 2022 in order to give the shattered Russian army a chance to recover,” he added.

It was also a bloody campaign revealed deep differences between Wagner’s boss and the Russian Defense Ministrywhom he repeatedly accused of insufficient supply of weapons and ammunition and of allowing the escape of regular units from the position occupied by the paramilitary group.

for his part, it took the Ukrainian military less than an hour to deny the claims from the leader of the Wagner mercenary group Yefgeniy Prigozhin that pro-Russian troops have completed the occupation of the city of Bakhmut, in the east of Ukraine. “Our troops are fighting in Bakhmut,” military spokesman Serhiy Cherevatyi told international media.

However Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Maliarhe recognized that the fighting is “difficult” and the situation in the city is “critical”.

“Our troops are holding the defense in the Litak area,” he said on his Telegram account. “Our defenders control certain facilities and infrastructure in that area”.

It is not the first time that Prigozhin claims to be making progress which were not later discovered to be real.

During the very video in which he announces the takeover of the city, gunshots and cannonade can be heard in the background.