Russia has claimed to have fully captured Ukraine’s Bakhmut, which was followed by President Vladimir Putin congratulating his troops and the mercenary Wagner Group for taking the largely levelled eastern city.
Following Kiev’s admission that the situation was ‘critical’ and that the conflict was still going on, Russia made its announcement on Saturday.
The longest and bloodiest combat in Russia’s 15-month conflict in Ukraine has taken place in Bakhmut, a salt mining town with a former population of 70,000.
The fall of Bakhmut, where it is thought that both Russia and Ukraine incurred significant losses, would be Moscow’s first significant success in the conflict in more than ten months.
‘As a result of offensive actions of the Wagner assault units, with the support of artillery and aviation of the ‘Southern’ unit, the liberation of the city of Artemovsk was completed,” Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement, using the Soviet-era name of Bakhmut.
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“Vladimir Putin congratulated the assault units of Wagner as well as all servicemen of units of the Russian armed forces who provided them with the necessary support and flank cover, on the completion of the operation to liberate” the city, the TASS state news agency quoted a Kremlin statement as saying.
The Russian president said those who had distinguished themselves would be given awards, the news agency added.
Wagner’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin earlier claimed the city had fallen to his mercenaries in a video posted on Telegram, in which fighters held Russian flags against a backdrop of ruins.
‘Today on May 20, around midday, Bakhmut was taken in its entirety,’ Prigozhin said in the video, adding that Wagner fighters would search the captured city before handing it over to the Russian army.
‘By May 25 we will completely examine [Bakhmut], create the necessary lines of defence and hand it to the military,’ Prigozhin said. ‘We ourselves will go into field camps.’
Artillery sound could be heard in the background of Prigozhin’s video.
The claims came after a week in which Ukrainian forces have made their most rapid gains for six months on Bakhmut’s northern and southern flanks.