In a strong endorsement of the privatization of armed conflicts, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated the mercenaries of the Wagner Group on Sunday for taking over the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, an enclave that has become strategic for being for eight months the bloodiest battle of this war. However, the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, denied from Hiroshima (Japan) that the city had fallen.
In a statement posted on the Kremlin's website, Putin said the longest battle of this war had ended in Russian victory. "The (Russian) head of state congratulated Wagner's assault groups, as well as members of the Russian armed forces units who have given them all necessary support and flank protection in the operation to liberate Artemivsk. ”, says the message.
In Russia, Bakhmut, which had 70,000 inhabitants before the conflict, is known as Artemivsk, the name it had until 2016.
The Russian spearhead in Bakhmut has been Wagner's militias. Its founder and owner, the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced the seizure of the city on Saturday. “The operation for the capture of Bakhmut, ‘the Bakhmut meat grinder,’ has lasted 224 days,” he said on Telegram.
From the Japanese city of Hiroshima, where he has attended the G-7 summit, Volodimir Zelensky denied yesterday that Ukraine had lost Bakhmut. "Today, Bakhmut is not occupied by the Russian Federation," he said at a press conference.
With this statement he wanted to curb the equivocal impression that he himself had left with a previous ambiguous statement. “Today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts. There is nothing in that place, just ruins and many dead Russians," Zelensky said.
Taking advantage of the place from which he was speaking, the Ukrainian president added that the photographs of the destruction of Hiroshima, devastated during World War II by the first of the two atomic bombs dropped by the United States against Japan in World War II, reminded him of Bakhmut and other destroyed Ukrainian cities.
From Ukraine it was insisted that the battle continues. The head of his ground forces, General Olexánder Sirski, assured on Telegram that his forces are trying to advance on the flanks to surround the city.
Located about 55 kilometers from Donetsk, the capital of the province of the same name, in autumn and winter Bakhmut was believed to be a strategic point in the Russian advance to the west, in its intention to take Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and end up completely controlling this province. But with the arrival of spring the scenario has changed.
Now it is Ukraine that is preparing a counter-offensive with Western weapons to recover the territories occupied by Russia. It remains to be seen what role Wagner's men will play.
Prigozhin and his people have been at odds with the Ministry of Defense for months, headed by Sergei Shoigu. The oligarch, who is considered close to Putin, has reproached the military commanders for not sending them enough ammunition and supplies. In scandalous messages and videos posted on social networks, Prigozhin has not hesitated to directly insult Shoigu and the chief of the General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov. Three weeks ago, a gruesome recording with dozens of corpses of his men was uploaded to the internet. In foul and aggressive language, he accused the Ministry of killing his mercenaries and threatened to withdraw from Bakhmut.
After the congratulations from the head of the Kremlin received yesterday, Prigozhin and his soldiers of fortune seem to be strengthened to play a prominent role in the upcoming fighting.
On the other hand, Prigozhin has taken advantage of the conflict to come out of the shadows, to recognize that he was Wagner's boss, something he had denied for years, and to become one of the most emblematic faces of the conflict in Russia. That has sparked speculation about his possible political ambitions, which obviously could lead to enmity in Russian power circles.
Keeping up with Defense could also hurt him, considering that Shoigu has always been a man very close to Putin. In his message on Telegram he insisted on that defiant position. He accused the top brass of using "military bureaucracy" to hinder Wagner and underestimated the role of Russian regular forces in Bakhmut: "Virtually no one from the army has helped us," he asserted.
