Pro-Russian separatist leader Denis Pushilin said on Wednesday that units of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner are advancing in Bakhmout in eastern Ukraine and fighting in parts of the city hitherto controlled by Kyiv.
“Units, especially Wagner, advance to Artemovsk (Russian name of BachmoutNote d. Red.),” said the agency Tass Denis Pushilin, who was appointed head of the Russian administration of the Moscow-annexed Donetsk region in September.
“Fighting is already taking place in the suburbs and neighborhoods that until recently were held by the enemy,” he added.
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Bachmoutnorth of the city of Donetsk, is the scene of a bloody battle for weeks Russian and Ukrainian Armed Forceseven if Western military experts put its strategic importance into perspective.
Russia announced capture in mid-January Solara town northeast of Bakhmout, which Kyiv disputed, and a week later from Klichtchiivka in the south, submits that the chief of Wagner groupattributed the oligarch Yevgeny Prigojine to his mercenaries.
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Denis Pushilin said the capture of Soledar made it possible for Russian forces Block Ukrainian supply routes and the control of certain areas from which Ukrainian forces launched “serious retaliatory actions.”