The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said on Friday that his forces “virtually surrounded” Bakhmut, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine that saw the fiercest fighting of the Moscow invasion.
Warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin said there was “only one way left” to get out of the city for the Ukrainian defenders to leave as Russian troops moved in.
Footage circulated online of a railway bridge being destroyed by an explosion, which some said was Ukrainian troops covering their retreat. Others said Russia destroyed the bridge. MailOnline was unable to immediately verify the video.
Ukraine has said it will defend “Bakhmut fortress” as long as possible, but this week officials admitted that the situation was becoming increasingly difficult.
Russia is determined to take Bakhmut – a now-ruined city once known for its sparkling wine – as part of its wider goal to conquer the entire Donetsk region.
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin (pictured) said on Friday his troops “virtually surrounded” Bakhmut, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine that saw the fiercest fighting of the Moscow invasion.
“Units of Wagner’s paramilitary group have practically surrounded Bakhmut, there is only one way left,” Prigozhin said in a video posted to Telegram.
The stocky 61-year-old regularly posted about the progress of Wagner, his once shadowy force at the center of the struggle in eastern Ukraine.
He has said in recent weeks that his fighters have taken three villages north of Bakhmut: Yagidne, Berkhivka and Paraskoviivka.
Some of his previous claims, such as when he said Wagner had taken Soledar in January, have been disputed by Moscow, suggesting a power struggle.
“When we used to fight against the professional army, now we increasingly see old people and children,” Prigozhin said in the video released Friday, in which the Wagner warlord also appeared to show three Ukrainian prisoners of war.
“They are fighting, but their life expectancy in Bakhmut is now very short, a day or two,” Prigozhin said, calling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “let (Ukrainian soldiers) leave.”
Ukrainian troops held out for months, waging brutal trench warfare and artillery battles that leveled large parts of the city.
Zelensky said this week that the fighting is “only increasing.”
His remarks followed an assessment by the commander of Ukrainian ground forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, who said the situation in the city was “extremely tense.”
Only about 4,500 civilians remain in the devastated city, which had a population of about 70,000 before the conflict, Ukrainian officials said.
Both Ukrainian and Russian forces have reported heavy casualties in the battle for control of the city, whose symbolic importance transcends military significance.
Wagner himself, who at his peak boasted a force of about 50,000 fighters after Prigozhin recruited thousands of convicts from Russia, is said to have lost as many as 40,000 of these troops in his assault around the Bakhmut region.
Wagner and Russia are said to have sent wave after wave of soldiers against Ukrainian defenses in battles that have been compared to a World War I “meat grinder.”
Pictured: Ukrainian soldiers prepare to fire an Msta-B howitzer at Russian positions near the frontline town of Bakhmut on March 2 as they continue to defend the town
Ukraine has said it will defend “Bakhmut fortress” as long as possible, but this week officials admitted that the situation was becoming increasingly difficult. Pictured: Ukrainian soldiers walk in a muddy trench along the front lines surrounding the city as Russia closes in
This file video shot taken by AFPTV with a drone shows an aerial view of the near-total destruction of the city of Bakhmut on February 27
Kiev has said its troops are still holding out there, acknowledging that the situation has worsened this week.
Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s National Guard, told Ukrainian NV Radio that the situation was “critical” and fighting was going on “round the clock.”
“They don’t count their losses when they tried to take the city by assault. The task of our forces in Bakhmut is to inflict as many losses on the enemy as possible. Every meter of Ukrainian land costs the enemy hundreds of lives,” he said.
“We need as much ammunition as possible. There are many more Russians here than we have ammunition to destroy them.’
The commander of a Ukrainian drone unit operating in Bakhmut, Robert Brovdi, who goes by the name ‘Madyar’, said in a video posted on social media that his unit had been ordered by the army to immediately withdraw from the city . He said he had been fighting there for 110 days and gave no reason for the order to leave.
The battle for the city has also exposed the political rivalry between Putin’s longtime ally Prigozhin and the Russian armed forces.
Last week, he issued an unprecedented call for the Russians to take his side and urged the Defense Ministry to share ammunition with his fighters.
While the battlefield is in eastern Ukraine, Russia said this week that a group of Ukrainian fighters had entered the southern Bryansk region.
Kiev dismissed the claims as a “deliberate provocation.”
Moscow says regions bordering Ukraine are routinely shelled by Ukrainian troops, but the reported incursion was a rare case of fighting in Russia.
The Kremlin said on Friday it would take steps to prevent cross-border raids that left two dead. “Measures will be taken to prevent similar events in the future,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, warned the West against supplying more weapons to Ukraine as the main Kiev donors, President Joe Biden, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were due to meet in Washington.
Scholz’s first trip to Washington since February 2022 offers leaders a chance to demonstrate their determination to support Ukraine against Russia.
But the Kremlin said the supplies would only strain Western economies and would have no impact on fighting on the ground.
“(Arms transfers) place a significant burden on the economies of these countries and adversely affect the well-being of the citizens of these countries, including Germany,” Peskov told reporters.
“It is clear that this will prolong the conflict and will have sad consequences for the Ukrainian people,” he added.
A Ukrainian soldier gestures while riding a tank on a road towards the frontline town of Bakhmut amid the Russian assault on Ukraine, in Chasiv Yar, Donetsk region, Ukraine March 2
A still image from a video released by the press office of Russia’s Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin shows what he believes to be Wagner fighters standing with a flag on top of a building in Bakhmut, Ukraine, in this still image from a video released on March 2
A Russian tank was destroyed on Wednesday by an explosive device dropped by a drone near Bakhmut
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers on both sides are believed to have died since Russia invaded its pro-Western neighbor a year ago, on February 24, 2022.
Moscow, which says it has annexed nearly a fifth of Ukraine, accuses Kiev of posing a security risk. Ukraine and its allies say the invasion was an unprovoked war for land – an imperialistic land grab by an increasingly aggressive Putin.
On the sidelines of a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in India, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken briefly met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for the first time since the invasion.
Blinken told Lavrov to end the war and urged Moscow to reverse the suspension of the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement announced last week, US officials said.
Blinken said at a forum in the Indian capital on Friday that Russia should not be allowed to go to war with impunity or it would “send a message to potential aggressors everywhere that they might get away with it too.”
