KYIV-Russia’s Wagner mercenary group claimed Wednesday to have captured the eastern bank of Bakhmut, the industrial town in east Ukraine where fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces has raged for months. The announcement came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that if Bakhmut fell, Moscow would gain an “open road” for offensives deeper into the country.
Wagner chief and Kremlin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin said on social media that his forces “have taken all of the eastern part of Bakhmut”, a salt-mining town with a pre-war population of 80,000.
The intense fighting around Bakhmut has been the longest and bloodiest in Russia’s more than year-long invasion, which has devastated swathes of Ukraine and displaced millions of people.
Zelensky warned in an interview with CNN what could happen if Bakhmut falls to Russian forces.
“We understand that after Bakhmut, (Russian forces) could go further” and attack nearby cities in the Donetsk region. “They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be an open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine, in the Donetsk direction,” Zelensky said in an interview set to air Wednesday.
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Wagner has spearheaded the attack on Bakhmut and its chief, Prigozhin, is locked in a dispute with Russia’s military leadership.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told military officials during a televised meeting on Tuesday that taking control of the city would allow for “further offensive operations” in eastern Ukraine.
Prigozhin estimated the day before that between “12,000 and 20,000” Ukrainian troops were still defending the town.
Zelensky told CNN that his armed forces were resolved to stay in Bakhmut.