Russia said on Sunday that squads of Wagner mercenaries, backed by regular army airborne units, had captured two more blocks in the eastern city of Bakhmut, where the bloodiest battle of the war in Ukraine has raged since last summer.

Wagner mercenaries lead the Russian attempt to capture Bahamut. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, two quarters were captured in the northwestern and southeastern parts of the city, which were largely destroyed as a result of the fighting.

According to the same source, the paratroopers are helping Wagner by keeping Ukrainian forces from outflanking her units.

Kyiv did not comment on the information.

According to Sheriy Tserevaty, a spokesman for the Ukrainian army command in the eastern part of the country, the Wagner units act like a battering ram, as they attack dozens of times a day.

“The enemy continues to attack our positions with diabolical zeal,” he told Ukrainian parliamentary television.

On Friday, the British Ministry of Defense acknowledged that Ukrainian troops were forced to withdraw from sectors of the city.

Earlier the day before, the General Staff of Ukraine announced that 45 attacks on Bakhmut and Marinka had been repulsed, assuring that the situation on the fronts was unchanged and “the enemy was suffering heavy losses.”

According to the military governor Vitaly Kim, on Easter Sunday in Nikolaev, two teenagers were killed as a result of Russian shelling. In the Zaporozhye region, local military official Yuriy Malashko spoke of a “massive” attack by Russian troops that damaged, in particular, a church, believing that “nothing is sacred” for the opposing side.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian media reported yesterday that Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Wagner, had called for an end to the war, which the Kremlin called a “special military operation.”

Prigogine reportedly believed that the “ideal” would be “announcing the end of the special military operation and announcing that Russia has achieved all of its goals, and in a sense we have achieved them”, warning that “there is a danger that the situation at the front will worsen when the (Ukrainian) counterattack occurs.”

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv has officially commented on the deployment.

Source: Reuters, dpa, APE-MPE.