Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
The leader of the mercenary group Russia Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin openly talks about the difficulty of soldiers to control every “centimeter” of territory Ukraine.
In a recording of his visit to the Eastern Front, Prigozhin said that Ukrainian soldiers or volunteers turned every house in Bakhmut, Ukraine into a stronghold.
During the invasion, Wagner’s army had to fight for days or even weeks.
“In Artemovsk (Bakhmut), every house becomes a fortress. Our people sometimes fight for more than a day just to occupy a house. Sometimes they fight for weeks for a house,” Prigozhin said. The GuardianWednesday (4/1).
An anonymous soldier Prigozhin met said he had a hard time fighting in Bakhmut. Because the soldiers did not have adequate equipment and weapons.
“We don’t have enough equipment, we don’t have enough BMP3s (armored vehicles) and cartridges,” said the soldier who declined to give his name.
In separate footage recorded on January 2 in Bakhmut, Ukrainian soldier Kiyanyn describes the ongoing war situation in the area. Amidst the sounds of gunfire, he described how soldiers had repelled a series of major attacks on the city.
“They came like bugs. We had to reload the ammunition several times,” he said.
The resumption of fighting in the east comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was preparing to step up attacks on Ukraine using Iranian-made drones.
“We have information that Russia is planning a sustained attack using Shahed (Iranian drones),” Zelensky said in a video.
He said, “(Russian troops) want to destroy the Ukrainian resistance by draining our people’s manpower, our air defense and our energy for more than 10 months.”
The war situation in Ukraine itself is still ongoing, especially after Kiev’s troops successfully attacked Kremlin forces in the occupied Donetsk territory. Ukraine says hundreds of Russian servicemen were killed in the attack. Meanwhile, Russia has acknowledged that 89 of its soldiers have been killed.
It was the highest number of casualties in a single attack Russia has acknowledged since the invasion began last February.
The attack is said to have used six rockets from the launch system High Mobility Artillery Missile System (HIMARS) with two of them shot down by the Russians, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
(blq/bac)
