Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was in Mariupol, a city that has become a symbol of Ukraine's resistance and the horrors of war, over the weekend to inspect reconstruction efforts. Located in the south of the Donetsk region, in the Donbass, Mariupol had a population of more than 400,000 before the conflict.
According to a press release issued this Monday by the Ministry of Defense, Shoigu also verified the work to restore its functionality to the civil infrastructures of the region.
"In the city of Mariupol of the Donetsk People's Republic, the head of the Russian Military Department inspected the readiness of the already delivered buildings and the progress of work on the sites of buildings and structures under construction," the ministry it heads said. .
Shoigu inspected a multifunctional medical center, a rescue center of the Russian Emergencies Ministry and a new neighborhood of 12 five-story residential buildings. According to the Ría Nóvosti agency, all these buildings have been built by Russian military companies.
Mariupol was virtually destroyed last year after fierce fighting in this Azov Sea coastal city during the Russian siege.
Russia took control of this square on May 20 of last year. The siege lasted almost three months. It began on March 7, 2022, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his army to enter Ukraine on February 24. The siege ended on May 20, when the last Ukrainian defenders who had entrenched themselves at the Azovstal metallurgical plant surrendered.
After consolidating control of this city, Russia began rebuilding hundreds of buildings or building new ones to replace those that were destroyed. The Russian government presented an ambitious plan last summer to rebuild Mariupol in three years.
The visit to Mariupol by Sergei Shoigu, one of the men closest to Putin, was part of a business trip to the area of operations, which included meetings with the military participating in the Russian military campaign in Ukraine.
The hottest scene at present is located further north of Mariupol, in Bakhmut, a city also in Donetsk, with 70,000 inhabitants before the conflict, and which Russian troops have been trying to take for months. Last week they announced that they have practically surrounded it, but the Ukrainian troops continue to resist.
At the head of the Russian offensive are the mercenaries of the Wagner Group. His boss, the oligarch Yevgueni Prigozhin, said in a video last week to the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, that in "about two days" that bastion could fall and asked him to withdraw his troops to save the lives of his soldiers.
Now, according to this controversial businessman considered close to Putin but in conflict with the commanders of the Russian Army, the situation seems different.
In a new sign of tension with the Defense Ministry, he warned that Russia's position around Bakhmut was in jeopardy unless they sent ammunition to its fighters.
In January, when the Russian troops managed to control Soledar, Prigozhin assured that they wanted to "steal" the capture of that small town near Bakhmut, since in a first report the Ministry of Defense did not summon his men.
Last month he accused Shoigu and army chief of staff Valery Gerasimov of wanting to "destroy" his company for withholding supplies of ammunition for his men, which he likened to "betrayal of the homeland." Later, he assured that he had already been promised the arrival of new supplies.
Now he complains again that these promises are not fulfilled. In a message posted on his press service's Telegram channel on Sunday he said the Russian front lines near Bakhmut could collapse if his forces did not receive ammunition promised by Moscow in February.
"Orders for shipment were given on February 23. But until today most of the ammunition has not been shipped. At the moment, we are trying to find out the reason: is it just ordinary bureaucracy or betrayal?" Prigozhin said, repeating the same accusation. "If Wagner now withdraws from Bakhmut, the entire front will collapse. The situation will not be good for all the military formations that protect Russian interests," he added.
Although Kyiv has described the situation in Bakhmut as "difficult", "complicated" or "critical", the Ukrainian troops are not willing to hand over this place. The commander of the Ukrainian troops in Bakhmut, Volodimir Nazarenko, said that there had been no withdrawal order and that "the defense is resisting" in disastrous conditions, collects Reuters.
Bakhmut has limited strategic value, but at a time when there are no major advances it could become a symbol for both sides due to how long they have been fighting over it.
Taking Bakhmut, which in Russia is still called Artiomovsk, the name it had until 2016, would be a serious victory for Moscow in this winter's slow offensive, especially after last year's withdrawals and after recruiting more than 300,000 reservists in the fall.
In addition, it would leave a clear path to continue advancing towards the cities of Slaviansk and Kramatorsk, with the declared objective of taking full control of the Donetsk province.
