The head of the Russian private army Wagner has said his fighters have completed the capture of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, but Kyiv immediately rejected the claim and said fighting was still going on.
Yevgeny Prigozhin made the claim in a video on Saturday in which he appeared in combat fatigues in front of a line of fighters holding Russian flags and Wagner banners.
“Today, at 12 noon, Bakhmut was completely taken,” Prigozhin said. “We completely took the whole city, from house to house.
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isn't this the opposite of what they claimed last week
We've been following reports and information pretty closely this week over in the megathread and this is probably legit. Russian MOD also announced it officially.
There might possibly be some cleanup of left behind soldiers in a few buildings. But as of yesterday there were like 8 buildings left and they were just shelling them to destroy them and get it over with. Very likely that this is now pretty much a closed chapter in the war.
Prigozhin started whining and bitching about not having enough ammo very publically, then a few days later there was a Ukrainian counterattack on the Bakhmut flanks which initially took some land but by all accounts has been solidly beaten back with high Ukrainian losses.
One interpretation is that Priozhin was goading the Ukrainians into an attack. Not sure if I believe it, but I guess time will tell.
that would be pretty funny if they fell for that trap. shit at this point Russia should be like "yea let them think we are fighting only with shovels."
"Bellingcat was right, we ran out of shells 1 month after the start of hostilities. All those explosions around you are in your head, feel free to leave your trench and walk around, that would really own us."
AFAIK this is one of those rare times that Russian and Ukrainian sources kind of line up. The only people I've seen claiming Ukrainian success are NAFO idiots.
I wasn't disputing it stopped I was responding to your point a bout high Ukrainian losses. It's basically a meme at this point for Russia to claim they kill 20 million ukrainian soldiers any time anything happens. Also who knows what the goals were of these attacks. They succeeded in retaking a lot of the heights to the west of Bakhmut.