KYIV, Ukraine — The head of the Russian non-public military Wagner says his pressure misplaced more than 20,000 opponents in the drawn-out battle for Bakhmut, with about 20% of the 50,000 Russian convicts he recruited to battle in the 15-month warfare death in the jap Ukrainian town.
The determine was once in stark distinction with claims from Moscow that it misplaced simply over 6,000 troops in the warfare, and is upper than the legit estimate of the Soviet losses in the Afghanistan warfare of 15,000 troops between 1979-89. Ukraine hasn’t mentioned what number of of its squaddies have died since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Analysts consider the nine-month battle for Bakhmut by myself have value the lives of tens of hundreds of squaddies, amongst them convicts who reportedly gained little coaching ahead of being despatched to the entrance.
Russia’s invasion purpose of “demilitarizing” Ukraine has backfired as a result of Kyiv’s army has turn into more potent with the availability of guns and coaching via its Western allies, Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin mentioned in an interview printed overdue Tuesday with Konstantin Dolgov, a pro-Kremlin political strategist.
Prigozhin additionally mentioned the Kremlin’s forces have killed civilians throughout the warfare, one thing Moscow has many times and vehemently denied.
Prigozhin, a rich businessman with longtime hyperlinks to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is understood for his bluster — ceaselessly spiced with obscenities — and has prior to now made unverifiable claims, some of which he later backtracked on.
Earlier this month, his spokespeople printed a video of him shouting, swearing and pointing at about 30 uniformed our bodies mendacity at the floor, pronouncing they have been Wagner opponents who died in a unmarried day. He claimed the Russian Defense Ministry had starved his males of ammunition and threatened to surrender the battle for Bakhmut.
He additionally mentioned in Tuesday’s interview it was once conceivable that Kyiv’s expected counteroffensive in coming weeks, given endured Western enhance, would possibly push Russian forces out of southern and jap Ukraine in addition to annexed Crimea.
“A pessimistic scenario: the Ukrainians are given missiles, they prepare troops, of course they will continue their offensive, try to counterattack,” he said. “They will attack Crimea, they will try to blow up the Crimean bridge (to the Russian mainland), cut off (our) supply lines. Therefore, we need to prepare for a hard war.”
The Ukrainian General Staff mentioned Wednesday that “heavy fighting” is continuous within Bakhmut, days after Russia mentioned that it totally captured the devastated town.
Bakhmut lies in Donetsk province, one of 4 provinces Russia illegally annexed final fall and handiest in part controls.
The head of Ukraine’s floor forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, mentioned that Kyiv’s forces “are continuing their defensive operation” in Bakhmut, and feature attained unspecified “successes” at the town’s outskirts. He gave no additional main points.
Ukrainian officers have insisted the battle for Bakhmut isn’t over.
A Ukrainian commander in Bakhmut advised The Associated Press on Tuesday that the Ukrainians have a plan to push the Russians out of all occupied territory.
“But now we don’t need to fight in Bakhmut, we need to surround it from flanks and block it,” Yevhen Mezhevikin mentioned. “Then we should ‘sweep’ it. This is more appropriate, and that’s what we are doing now.”
Elsewhere, Russian forces shot down “a large number” of drones in Russia’s southern Belgorod region, a local official said Wednesday, a day after Moscow announced that its forces crushed a cross-border raid in the area from Ukraine.
The drones were intercepted overnight over the province, Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a Telegram post. He said that no one had been hurt, but unspecified administrative buildings, residential buildings and cars were damaged.
Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment.
Russia said the previous day that it beat back one of war’s most serious cross-border attacks, with the Defense Ministry saying that more than 70 attackers were killed in a battle in the Belgorod region that lasted around 24 hours. It made no mention of any Russian casualties.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that local troops, airstrikes and artillery routed the attackers.
Twelve local civilians were wounded in the attack, officials said, and an older woman died during an evacuation.
Details of the incident in the rural region, lying about 80 kilometers (45 miles) north of the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine and far from the front lines of the almost 15-month war, are unclear.
Moscow blamed the incursion that began Monday on Ukrainian military saboteurs. Kyiv described it as an uprising against the Kremlin by Russian partisans. It was impossible to reconcile the two versions, to say with certainty who was behind the attack or to ascertain its aims.
The region is a Russian military hub holding fuel and ammunition depots. Moscow officials declined to say how many attackers were involved in the assault or comment on why efforts to put down the attackers took so long.
The Belgorod region, like the neighboring Bryansk region and other border areas, has witnessed sporadic spillover from the war, which Russia started by invading Ukraine in February 2022.
At least three civilians died and 18 others were wounded in Ukraine on Tuesday and overnight, the Ukrainian presidential office reported Wednesday, including in the southern Kherson region where two elderly people died in air strikes.
___
Associated Press Writer Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP’s protection of the warfare in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
post credit to Source link
