About 6,000 Wagner mercenaries are fighting in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Donetsk region, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said, according to the “New Voice of Ukraine”.

“They are currently conducting combat operations, primarily in Bakhmut,” Milley told the House Armed Services Committee alongside US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

“It’s probably about 6,000 mercenaries and maybe another 20,000 or 30,000 recruits that they get, a lot of them from prisons. Ukrainians are causing a lot of death and destruction to these people,” Milli said.

Earlier, the spokesman of the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Serhii Cherevaty, stated that the Russian PMK “Wagner” is unable to independently provide offensive actions in Bakhmut and is forced to ask for the support of the Russian army. He stated that the Russian army has been trying to capture Bakhmut for nine months.

The Ukrainian army continues the fight for Bakhmut

However, the Ukrainian army continues to stabilize the situation at the front. The intensity of Russian assault and artillery shelling in several areas has significantly decreased, army representatives reported. A few days ago, footage of Ukrainian tanks operating in the front-line city of Bakhmut appeared, which confirms the assertion of some military experts that the invading Russian troops lack anti-tank weapons.

Some military commentators say these signs indicate that Russia’s “winter offensive” has reached a “tipping point” — the point where the attacking side no longer has the resources or forces to continue the attack. Military experts, both Ukrainian and foreign, claimed that the spring offensive could be decisive in determining the outcome of the war.

The British Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday morning that fighting was continuing in Bakhmut, but that Russian attacks were still at a reduced level compared to recent weeks.

“One of the main achievements of the recent Ukrainian operations was probably the repulse of the Russian fighters of the HVK “Wagner” from route 0506. This secondary rural road became a critically important supply line for the Ukrainian defenders. Earlier, “Wagner” was several hundred meters away from this track,” said British military experts.

Read also:

• Yevgeny Prigozhin: The Battle of Bakhmut “practically destroyed the Ukrainian army” / What Wagner’s leader said about his troops
• Convoy, a new group of mercenaries similar to Wagner’s group, is ready to defend Crimea from Ukrainian attacks

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