Russian paramilitary group Wagner claimed responsibility for seizing Bachmouth’s town hall on Monday, saying the victory meant it now controlled the city “in the legal sense,” with Ukraine vowing for its part to still hold the city. The country has been in a state of intense fighting for months.
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“In the legal sense, Bagmouth has been captured. The enemy is concentrated in the western areas,” Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a telegram.
In memory of Vladlen Tatarsky, a staunch defender of the attack in Ukraine, who was killed by a bomb on Sunday, Mr. Shows Prigozhin waving a Russian flag. 25 people were injured in the attack in the historic center of St. Petersburg.
“The commanders of the divisions that took over the town hall and the whole center will go and raise this flag,” Prigozhin said. “Here is the Wagner Private Military Company, here are the men who took Bagmouth. From a legal perspective, it is ours,” he says.
A few hours earlier, Ukrainian civil servants confirmed the opposite. “The enemy did not stop the attack on Buckmouth. However, Ukrainian defenders are holding the city bravely by repelling numerous enemy attacks,” the Ukrainian General Staff posted on its Facebook page on Sunday evening.
Bagmouth, a town of about 70,000 people before the war, had been the scene of months of violent fighting. Due to the length of the war and the heavy losses suffered by both sides, the city has become a symbol of the struggle between the Russians and Ukrainians for control of the industrial region of Donbass.
Russian troops have advanced north and south of the city in recent months, cutting off several Ukrainian supply lines and capturing its eastern side. On March 20, Yevgeny Prigozhin stated that Wagner controls 70% of Bachmouth.
Although analysts judge the Ukrainian city to be of limited strategic importance, the Battle of Pakmut is believed to be necessary to control Russian forces in the entire eastern region.
A difficult situation
In his Sunday evening speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that the situation in Baghmouth was difficult for his troops.
“I am grateful to our soldiers who are fighting near Avdivka, Meringa and Bagmouth. Especially Bakhmout! It’s hot out there today! Mr. Zelensky said.
The situation in the region is “still very tense,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Khanna Maliar said Sunday, before Wagner’s chairman’s announcement. “The enemy is trying to engage not only Wagner’s fighters but also professional paratrooper units. Casualties of high altitude men will not deter the enemy,” he added.
Ukrainian officials said six people, three men and three women, were killed and 11 injured in a Russian bombing on Sunday in Kostiantynivka, about 27 km from Baghmouth.
These targeted “mere residential areas”, “ordinary citizens of an ordinary city called Donbass”, replied President Zelensky.
AFP journalists saw a large crater in a courtyard, windows in two 14-story buildings broken from ground to upper floors, and roofs of neighboring houses torn off.
Russia launched a “massive attack” in the morning, six S-300 and Hurricane missile strikes, police said.
He said a total of “sixteen apartment buildings, eight private residences, a kindergarten, an administrative building, three cars and a gas pipeline” were affected.
Lilia, a 19-year-old psychology student, said she was “shocked” when she found shards of glass falling from windows outside the badly damaged apartment building.
“I was very lucky not to be home at the time,” he said.
Retired Nina was looking at the damage in her apartment on the ground floor of a Soviet-era building. She was also not at home when the blast took place.
“Inner doors and front doors were smashed. The inner wall collapsed. Not even a single window is left,” she explained.
Mr. According to Zelensky, two people were killed by mortar fire in the Sumy region (northeast).
