School No. 12 and apartment buildings in Bakhmut on May 8, 2022. 
The same scene on May 15, 2023.Mercenaries from Wagner spearheaded the Russian offensive. Prigozhin tried to use the battle for the city to expand his own clout amid the tensions with the top Russian military leaders whom he harshly criticized.
“We fought not only with the Ukrainian armed forces in Bakhmut. We fought the Russian bureaucracy, which threw sand in the wheels,” Prigozhin said Saturday 5-20-2023.
The relentless Russian artillery bombardment left few buildings intact amid ferocious house-to-house battles. Wagner fighters “marched on the bodies of their own soldiers.”
School No. 12 and apartment buildings in Bakhmut on May 8, 2022. The same scene on May 15, 2023.