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Wagner Chief Prigozhin Outlines Why Russia Refuses To End Invasion
Story by Ellie Cook • 10h ago
Ukraine will keep renewing efforts to retake the land it controlled prior to 2014 if Russia does not continue fighting, according to the chief of the Wagner group of mercenary fighters, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Russian billionaire and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin attends Russian-Turkish talks in Konstantin Palace in Strenla on August,9, 2016 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Prigozhin’s fighters have been heavily involved in fighting for the Donetsk city of Bakhmut, which has been the focus of fierce battles for months.
“I am absolutely sure that Ukraine, with the help of the NATO bloc, will break through these ‘red lines’ and return those territories that belonged to it until 2014,” Prigozhin said in a statement posted to Telegram via his company’s page on Saturday.
“There is no doubt about it,” he added, saying war would then “start again.” Such a conflict may “turn out to be even more tragic and bloody than the first. Therefore, we need to fight for Russia here and now,” the oligarch known as “Putin’s chef” said.
Prigozhin is a prominent and outspoken voice among Russia’s elite and an associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, he has heavily criticized Russia’s conventional military forces and Moscow’s defense ministry.
Prigozhin’s fighters have been heavily involved in Russian operations to take control of the eastern Donetsk city of Bakhmut, which has been under intense bombardment for months.
The “most advanced and prepared elements” of the Wagner paramilitary outfit have fought in assault operations around the city, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said on Saturday.
The ISW said Wagner mercenaries, along with Russia’s armed forces, look to have set themselves up for a “turning movement,” which would force Kyiv’s forces to abandon their defensive positions in the devastated city.
Citing Russian sources, the think tank said Wagner Group fighters may have progressed through eastern and northeastern Bakhmut to create this “tactically challenging turning movement in urban areas” in the north of the city.
This is a change from encirclement of the city, which the ISW and the British defense ministry previously evaluated as the Russian strategy.
On Sunday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Russia was attempting to “surround” Bakhmut, but Kyiv’s forces had fended off the attacks.
On Saturday, the British defense ministry said Bakhmut was under “increasingly severe pressure,” and Ukraine’s resupply routes were becoming more and more limited. Kyiv had sent in elite units to back up its fighters in the city, the ministry added.
The remaining residents of Bakhmut are now fleeing on foot, the Associated Press reported on Saturday. The city had a pre-war population of around 75,000 people.
The city’s deputy mayor told the BBC on Saturday that “not a single building” in Bakhmut was untouched by the fighting, both around the city and in the streets.
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Ex-FSB Officer Fears Russia Cannot Hold Bakhmut After Winter Thaw
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https://ukrainetoday.org/2023/03/05/ex-fsb-officer-fears-russia-cannot-hold-bakhmut-after-winter-thaw/
3/4/23
Ukrainian servicemen fire a 105mm Howitzer towards Russian positions, near the city of Bakhmut, on March 4, 2023.
Russian military blogger Igor Girkin has played down the significance of reports that Russian troops have encircled Bakhmut and expressed doubt that the Donetsk city can be held by Moscow.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the financier of the Wagner Group of mercenaries, has claimed that the city had been surrounded by Russian forces during the fierce battle in which his troops have been involved.
His comments followed an assessment by analysts that Ukraine’s forces are preparing to withdraw from the city, pointing to how two bridges, one of which is a key supply route, had been destroyed.
But Girkin, who is a former FSB officer and ex-commander who led Russian-backed forces in the separatist Donetsk region in 2014, wrote a downbeat assessment of the purported Russian gains in the city fought over for seven months.
On his Telegram channel, Girkin wrote he did not “share such optimistic forecasts” as expressed by other military bloggers, about the Russian forces taking and holding Bakhmut. After the months of assault, he wrote, Wagner troops would have to take a break which could allow Ukraine to regroup and “exchange territory for time.”
He said that this had been “the plan of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” who will then “make his move…probably after the end of the thaw,” referring to the spring.
“We must prepare to repel their strike,” added Girkin, who also goes by the name Strelkov, and has been highly critical of President Vladimir Putin‘s war effort and the actions of his commanders.
“Typical Girkin, isn’t very optimistic about the prospects of taking Bakhmut, as this only means Ukrainians have won valuable time for a counter-strike,” tweeted the account of War Translated.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.
Despite the reports of Russian gains, Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesman for the eastern grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told CNN that Moscow’s forces have not taken Bakhmut and that fighting continues on the outskirts of the city.
He said that the city is still controlled “by Ukrainian defense forces: the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Border Guard and the National Guard.”
However, Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy commander in the National Guard of Ukraine, did not sugar-coat the scale of the task that Ukrainian troops face.
“Every hour in Bakhmut is like hell,” he told Ukrainian broadcaster Kyiv24, although he said that Russian forces had not crossed the Bakhmutka River. “Over the past few days, the front line has been stabilized thanks to our hard work and efforts,” he added.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-girkin-bakhmut-1785547