Bakhmut 'unlikely to be taken' in the next two days, says Wagner chief
The head of the Wagner Group mercenary force, which has spearheaded the fighting in Bakhmut for several months, has said that the city is unlikely to fall to his forces in the next two days.
According to Yevgeny Prigozhin, Ukrainian forces are holed up in a makeshift “fortress” in the south of the front line city, while fighting continues around them.
In a voice message uploaded to Telegram, Mr Prigozhin said: "Bakhmut has still not been taken. Bakhmut is unlikely to be taken either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.”
"There is a quarter known as the 'Airplane' - it is like an impregnable fortress from a bed of multi-storey buildings in the southwest of Bakhmut, where incredibly heavy battles are going on."
Footage released by units of the Ukraine Armed Forces shows battle of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine on May 17, 2023.
The Ukrainian military and Russia’s mercenary Wagner forces have reported further Russian retreats around the city of Bakhmut, as Kyiv pressed on with its biggest advance in the city for months in advance of a long-awaited counteroffensive.
Ukraine said it had repelled a day of Russian attacks in and around the ruined eastern city on Thursday and made gains of up to 1km (almost 3,300 feet) in some places.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar, reporting on the advances in Bakhmut, said Ukrainian forces were meeting their “military objectives”.
“As of now, we control the southwestern part of Bakhmut,” she said.
The Russian defence ministry has acknowledged some withdrawals from positions near Bakhmut over the past week.
Kyiv says its tactic in Bakhmut is to draw Russian forces into the city’s urban warfare, so as to weaken Russia’s front-line defences elsewhere before Kyiv’s planned counterassault.
The area around the city, once home to 70,000 people in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, has been the focus of fighting for months.
Oleksander Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said in social media message this week that Wagner forces had “climbed into Bakhmut like rats into a mousetrap”.
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