The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said late on April 2, 2023, that his fighters had raised a Russian flag over Bakhmut’s city hall, claiming the city was now Russian “in a legal sense.”
Prigozhin’s claim
Prigozhin said Wagner had captured the city administration building, giving Russia “legal” control of Bakhmut, according to Kyiv Post. He acknowledged that Ukrainian forces remained concentrated in the western districts of the city, the BBC reported.
Ukraine: “Very far”
Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern military command, said Russian forces were “very far” from capturing Bakhmut and that fighting was continuing around the city council building, Asharq Al-Awsat reported. He said Russia had not captured anything “in a legal sense” and mocked the claim, saying Russian forces had “raised the flag over some kind of toilet.”
Ukrainian commanders said their forces had repelled more than 20 Russian attacks in the area. The Kremlin did not confirm Prigozhin’s claim, and the Russian Defence Ministry reported no advances in its daily briefing.
The battle for Bakhmut
Bakhmut, in Donetsk Oblast, has been the focus of Russia’s offensive for months, with Wagner fighters, including many recruited from prisons, leading the assault. Both sides have suffered heavy losses, and the city has been largely destroyed.
Sources
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