Moscow [Russia], May 21: Russia's Wagner private army claimed on Saturday to have finally captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut after the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, while Kyiv denied the city had fallen though it called the situation there critical.
If confirmed, the announcement by Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin that his troops had finally pushed the Ukrainians out of the last built-up area inside the city would amount to claiming Moscow's first big prize for more than 10 months.
But any sense of victory for Russia appears likely to be fleeting. The announcement comes after a week in which Ukrainian forces have made their most rapid gains for six months on Bakhmut's northern and southern flanks, which Prigozhin has said put his troops inside the city at risk of encirclement. Prigozhin, who has repeatedly denounced Russia's regular military for abandoning ground captured earlier by his men, said his own forces would now pull out of Bakhmut in five days to rest, handing the ruins of the city over to the regular military.
"Today, at 12 noon, Bakhmut was completely taken," Prigozhin said in a video in which he appeared in combat fatigues in front of a line of fighters holding Russian flags and Wagner banners. "We completely took the whole city, from house to house."
Ukrainian military spokesperson SerhiyCherevatyi told Reuters: "This is not true. Our units are fighting in Bakhmut."
Ukraine's Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar reported "heavy fighting in Bakhmut. The situation is critical," she said on the Telegram messaging service.
"As of now, our defenders control some industrial and infrastructure facilities in the area and the private sector."
Whether the Ukrainian forces have left Bakhmut or not, they have been slowly pulling back inside it, to clusters of buildings on the city's western edge.
But meanwhile, to the north and south, they have made their most rapid gains for six months in the surrounding area, seizing swathes of territory from Russian troops.
Russia has acknowledged losing some ground around Bakhmut in the past week, while denying assertions by Prigozhin that the flanks around the city guarded by regular troops have collapsed.
Kyiv says its aim in Bakhmut has been to draw Russian forces from elsewhere on the front into the city, to inflict high casualties there and weaken Moscow's defensive line elsewhere ahead of a planned major counteroffensive.
"Wagner troops climbed into Bakhmut like rats into a mousetrap," OleksanderSyrskyi, commander of Ukraine's ground forces, told troops at the Bakhmut front this week.
Source: Qatar Tribune