The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, declared on Monday that he had “legally” conquered the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. “In a legal sense, Bakhmut has been taken. The enemy is concentrating on the western regions,” Prigozhin said on Monday in the online service Telegram. According to him, the city’s administrative building was under Russian control.
In a video accompanying the Telegram post, Prigozhin can be seen holding a Russian flag with the inscription honoring Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who was killed in a bomb blast at a St. Petersburg cafe on Sunday. “The commanders of the units that have taken the town hall and the entire center will put up this flag,” said the Wagner boss. “This is the private military company Wagner, these are the guys who took Bachmut. Legally, it’s ours.”
As early as March 20, Prigozhin said his mercenaries controlled “about 70 percent” of Bakhmut. The aim of the Wagner units is the “complete liberation of the city”.
Bachmut has been hotly contested since last summer. Some experts question the sense of further fighting for the city in the Donetsk region – observers doubt the strategic importance of Bakhmut. However, in view of the fighting that has been going on for months with great losses, the city has now acquired a high symbolic importance for both sides.