Putin congratulates Russia troops, Wagner for ‘capturing Bakhmut’

Russia has claimed to have completely captured Bakhmut in Ukraine, with President Vladimir Putin congratulating his troops and the mercenary Wagner Group for taking the largely razed eastern city.

The Russian announcement on Saturday came hours after Kiev said fighting was still on, while admitting the situation was “critical”.

Bakhmut, a salt mining town that once had a population of 70,000, has been the scene of the longest and bloodiest battle in Russia’s 15-month war in Ukraine.

The fall of Bakhmut, where both Russia and Ukraine would have suffered huge losses, would mark Moscow’s first major victory in the conflict in more than 10 months.

“As a result of offensive actions by the Wagner assault units, with the support of artillery and aviation of the ‘Southern’ unit, the liberation of the city of Artemovsk was completed,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, using the Soviet -Union. era name of Bakhmut.

“Vladimir Putin congratulated Wagner’s assault units, as well as all servicemen from units of the Russian Armed Forces who provided them with the necessary support and flanking cover, on the completion of the operation to liberate the city,” the state news agency TASS was quoted as saying. a Kremlin statement as said.

The Russian president said those who distinguished themselves would receive awards, the news agency added.

Wagner’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin previously claimed the city had fallen to his mercenaries in a video posted on Telegram, which showed fighters holding Russian flags against a backdrop of ruins.

“Today on May 20, around noon, Bakhmut was taken in its entirety,” Prigozhin said in the video, adding that Wagner fighters would search the captured city before handing it over to the Russian army.

“We will fully investigate it by May 25 [Bakhmut], create the necessary lines of defense and hand them over to the army,” said Prigozhin. “We will go into field camps ourselves.”

Artillery sounds could be heard in the background of Prigozhin’s video.

‘Bakhmut will be liberated’

The claims came after a week in which Ukrainian forces made their fastest gains in six months on Bakhmut’s northern and southern flanks.

Kiev had rejected Prigozhin’s claim earlier on Saturday, but did not immediately comment on the defense ministry’s statement.

“Heavy fighting in Bakhmut. The situation is critical,” Deputy Defense Secretary Hanna Maliar posted on Telegram.

She said Ukrainian troops “kept the defense” in the city’s “aircraft area”.

“From now on, our defenders control certain industrial and infrastructure facilities in the area,” she said.

Al Jazeera was unable to verify either claim.

Whether or not Ukrainian forces have left Bakhmut, they are slowly retreating inwards, to clusters of buildings on the western edge of the city. In the meantime, they have seized parts of territory from Russian troops in the north and south.

Russia has acknowledged losing some ground around Bakhmut over the past week, while denying Prigozhin’s claims that the flanks around the city, guarded by regular troops, have collapsed.

Kiev says the aim in Bakhmut was to draw Russian troops into the city from elsewhere on the front, inflict heavy casualties there and weaken Moscow’s defenses elsewhere in anticipation of a planned major counter-offensive.

Moscow has long claimed that the capture of Bakhmut would be a stepping stone to a deeper push into the Donbas region it claims to have annexed from Ukraine. It has made it the main target of a massive offensive that failed to gain significant ground elsewhere.

Prigozhin has acknowledged that Bakhmut has little strategic importance, despite its enormous symbolic importance due to the magnitude of the losses in Europe’s bloodiest ground battle since World War II.

The battle for Bakhmut, meanwhile, has exposed a deeper rift between Wagner, a mercenary who recruited thousands of convicts from Russian prisons, and the regular Russian army.

For the past two weeks, Prigozhin has been distributing video and audio messages daily in which he denounces the Russian military leadership, often in swear words.

In Saturday’s video, he said that because of the “whims” of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, “five times more men died than they should”. He thanked Putin “for giving us this opportunity and great honor to defend our motherland”.

Diplomatic blitz

Russia’s announcement that the city had fallen came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to meet his American counterpart, Joe Biden, in Japan at the G7 summit.

Biden, who has led Western aid to Ukraine with sanctions and supplies, is “looking forward” to the meeting, a senior United States official said, adding it is expected to take place after 2:00 p.m. local time (0500 GMT). ) on Sunday.

The Ukrainian president, who was flown in on a plane from the French government, was able to meet not only the leaders of the G7, but also those of other key international players, such as the non-aligned powers of Brazil and India.

The fruits of its diplomatic efforts have already paid off, with the US announcing on Friday that it would allow Kiev to procure F-16 fighter jets, the most advanced equipment yet supplied by the West.

On his way to Japan, Zelenskyy also stopped at an Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia.

The Vatican said on Saturday that Pope Francis had asked Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, head of Italy’s bishops’ conference, to carry out a peacekeeping mission to help end the war.