In a video posted on Telegram this Sunday evening, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group, says his men now control the city “in the legal sense.”
Russian paramilitary group Wagner claimed responsibility for seizing the town hall of Bakhmaut in eastern Ukraine on Monday, saying the victory meant it now controlled the town “in a legal sense”.
“In the legal sense, Bakhmout has been captured. The enemy is concentrated in the western areas,” Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said on his Telegram channel.
“Legally, it’s ours.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin is shown waving a Russian flag in memory of Vladlen Tatarsky, an activist defender of the attack in Ukraine, who was killed Sunday in a bomb blast in St. Petersburg.
“The commanders of the units that took over the town hall and the whole center will go and raise this flag,” he said. “Here’s the private military company Wagner, here’s the guys who took Bagmouth. From a legal perspective, it’s ours,” he declares.
“Enemies have not stopped their attack on Bakhmoud. However, Ukrainian defenders have repelled numerous enemy attacks and bravely held the city,” the Ukrainian General Staff noted on its Facebook page a few hours ago.
Bagmouth, a town of about 70,000 people before the war, had been the scene of months of violent fighting.
Due to the length of the war and the heavy losses suffered by both sides, the city has become a symbol of the struggle between the Russians and Ukrainians for control of the industrial region of Donbass.
Russian troops have advanced north and south of the city in recent months, cutting off several Ukrainian supply lines and capturing its eastern side. On March 20, Yevgeny Prigozhin stated that Wagner controlled 70% of Bagmouth.
Even if analysts judge the Ukrainian city to be of limited strategic importance, Bakhmud believes the battle was necessary to control Russian forces in the entire eastern region.
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