“Wagner Group and Russia Claim to Have Taken Bakhmut, Putin Promises Medals for Combatants”

Vladimir Putin congratulates and promises a sprinkling of medals after the Wagner Group and Russia claim to have taken Bakhmut. Ukraine has not commented on Putin’s statement.

President Vladimir Putin promises awards to combatants who have distinguished themselves in the fight, Russian news agencies report at midnight on Sunday night.

Shortly before, the Russian Ministry of Defense sent out a message stating that Russia now has full control over the Ukrainian city.

– As a result of Wagner’s offensive, with the support of our forces’ artillery and air force, the liberation of Artyomovsk is now complete, said the statement from the Ministry of Defense in Moscow shortly after 11pm on Saturday evening Norwegian time.

Artyomovsk was the name of the city during the time of the Soviet Union.

A few hours earlier, the commander of the mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed that his forces were then in full control of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. His claim was rejected by the Ukrainian side.

Ukraine has yet to comment on Putin’s claim, which came several hours later.

– We took the whole town, house by house

– Today, at 12 o’clock, Bakhmut was completely conquered. We took the whole city, house by house, Prigozhin said in a video message in which he appears alongside a group of soldiers with Russian flags and banners with Wagner’s symbol. The sound of explosions can be heard in the distance on the video.

Prigozhin also claimed that the Wagner group is to withdraw from Bakhmut from 25 May and hand over control to units of the regular Russian army.

The Reuters news agency has not been able to verify Prigozhin’s claims about the capture. They were flatly rejected by the Ukrainian defense when they became known.

– This is not true. Our units are still fighting in Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces spokesman Serhiy Cherevaty said.

Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maljar wrote earlier on Saturday on Telegram that there were still fierce battles in the city, and that the Ukrainian forces are holding their ground in one district. However, she described the situation as “critical”.

– Unlikely

The statement from the Wagner chief on Saturday appears to be in sharp contrast to statements as late as Friday night, when Prigozhin stated that an imminent conquest of Bakhmut was unlikely.

– It is unlikely that Bakhmut will be completely conquered tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, he wrote then in a post on the messaging service Telegram. He pointed to a suburb where there was an “impregnable fortress formed by a series of blocks of flats”, southwest of the city centre.

Wagner has led the months-long assault on Bakhmut, which is seen as the longest and bloodiest of the war in Ukraine.

In early May, Prigozhin posted videos complaining about ammunition shortages and saying the group would withdraw from Bakhmut on 10 May. It didn’t happen.

Reinforcements

At the same time as several reports indicate some Russian progress in the city itself, both Ukrainian and Russian sources have confirmed that Ukrainian forces have advanced on the flanks.

The British military intelligence service wrote in a Twitter message on Saturday that it is “highly likely” that Russia has deployed several battalions in the Bakhmut area in the wake of this.

– The Russian leadership probably still sees the conquest of Bakhmut as a central, short-term goal that can enable them to declare a certain degree of success in the conflict, they write.

Prigozhin himself has admitted that Bakhmut, which before the war had 70,000 inhabitants, has no special strategic importance. However, the city has gained great symbolic importance, not least because both parties to the conflict have suffered heavy losses in the battles there.