his head Wagner, Evgeny Prigozhin said today that his forces have taken full control of Bakhmut, a city that has attracted public attention with the intensity and months of fighting, which the Ukrainian military denied, saying that their people continue to fight there, and the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, in particular, spoke of heavy fighting in city ​​and “critical situation”.

“This is not true. Our units are fighting in Bakhmut,” Serhiy Tserevaty, military representative of the Ukrainian forces, said after Prigozhin’s speech.

Reuters was unable to independently corroborate Prigozhin’s claim, which he made via video footage in camouflage in front of a line of his men holding Russian and Wagner flags.

Prigozhin reiterated his statements, which he has made many times in the past, that his troops suffered very heavy losses due to insufficient support and supplies of ammunition from the army.

Because of the Russian bureaucracy and the “whims” of Shoigu and the Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov “Five times more soldiers died than they should have”he said in today’s video.

British military intelligence said today that it is “very likely” that Russia deployed up to several battalions to reinforce the Bakhmut sector after Ukrainian victories on the flanks of the city.

Prigogine himself acknowledged that Bakhmut, a pre-war town of 70,000, was of no strategic importance, but had taken on tremendous symbolic importance for both sides due to the sheer intensity of the fighting and the scale of casualties.

Source: APE/MEB