Extract from ABC News
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia's Wagner Group mercenary force, has said in a sudden and dramatic announcement that his forces will leave Bakhmut on May 10, having tried to capture the Ukrainian city since last summer.
Key points:
- Yevgeny Prigozhin says Wagner mercenaries will leave Bakhmut by May 10 due to heavy losses and inadequate ammunition
- It is not clear if his latest statement can be taken at face value, as he frequently posts impulsive comments
- A Ukrainian official says Wagner fighters are being transported to Bakhmut to help take the city by Russia's Victory Day on May 9
Shortly afterwards, a senior Ukrainian official said Wagner mercenaries were being transported from other hotspots along the front line towards Bakhmut, adding that Moscow wanted to capture the city in time for its Victory Day celebrations on May 9.
Victory Day commemorates the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II.
"The Russians are inclined towards symbolism and their key historic myth is May 9, and they really have set the objective of taking control of Bakhmut by this date," Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said.
Mr Prigozhin said Wagner Group fighters would leave on May 10 because of heavy losses and inadequate ammunition supplies.
"I declare on behalf of the Wagner fighters, on behalf of the Wagner command, that on May 10, 2023, we are obliged to transfer positions in the settlement of Bakhmut to units of the defence ministry and withdraw the remains of Wagner to logistics camps to lick our wounds," Mr Prigozhin said in a statement.
"I'm pulling Wagner units out of Bakhmut because in the absence of ammunition they're doomed to perish senselessly."
Wagner has been spearheading Russia's long and costly attempt to capture Bakhmut and Mr Prigozhin said three weeks ago that his men controlled more than 80 per cent of the city.
But Ukrainian defenders have held out, and Mr Prigozhin has vented increasing anger at what he describes as lack of support from the Russian defence establishment.
It was not clear if his latest statement could be taken at face value, as he has frequently posted impulsive comments in the past.
Only last week he withdrew one statement he said he had made as a "joke".
Russian defence minister blasted
Earlier on Friday he appeared in a video surrounded by dozens of bodies he said were Wagner fighters, and yelling and swearing at Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
He said they were to blame for Wagner's losses because they had starved it of ammunition.
"We have a 70 per cent shortage of ammunition. Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the ******* ammunition?" he yelled into the camera.
Those responsible would go to hell, Mr Prigozhin shouted, before saying that Wagner's losses would be five times smaller if it was adequately supplied.
"These are Wagner lads who died today. The blood is still fresh," Mr Prigozhin said, pointing to the bodies around him.
"They came here as volunteers and they're dying so you can get fat in your offices."
Mr Prigozhin began publicly feuding with defence chiefs last year, accusing them of incompetence, and of deliberately depriving Wagner of ammunition out of personal animosity towards him.
In recently weeks, he had refrained from public attacks on Mr Shoigu, even as he continued to suggest that deliberate ammunition shortages had exacerbated Wagner casualty figures.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he could not comment on Mr Prigozhin's statement.
Russia says dam near nuclear plant threatened
Record high water levels could overwhelm a major dam in southern Ukraine and damage parts of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, a Russian official told the Tass news agency.
Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the general director of nuclear energy firm Rosenergoatom, said if the Nova Kakhovka dam did rupture, the power cable line for the Zaporizhzhia plant's pumping stations would be flooded.
"This (would create) functional problems for the operation of the plant and risks for nuclear safety," he told Tass.
Last November, after Russian forces withdrew from the nearby southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, satellite imagery showed significant new damage to the dam.
Both sides have accused each other of planning to breach the dam using explosives, which would flood much of the area downstream and would likely cause major destruction around Kherson.
Mr Karchaa's comments represent a significant contrast from those made in late March by Ukrainian officials, who said they feared the Zaporizhzhia facility could face a shortage of water to cool reactors by late summer because Russian forces had let water out of a reservoir that supplied the plant.
Russian troops took over the plant as they invaded parts of Ukraine last year.
It is at the centre of a nuclear security crisis due to near-constant shelling in its vicinity which Kyiv and Moscow blame on each other.
Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment