Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian company of Wagner mercenaries, this Friday urged the Ukrainian president to release “the children and old people who protect” Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, which he says is practically surrounded by Russian contractors.
“The subdivisions of the Wagner PMC surrounded almost the entire (district) of Bakhmut. Only one road is missing. The “pincers” are being tightened,” Prigozhin said in a statement recorded on a video addressed to Vladimir Zelensky and broadcast on Telegram messengers. system. .
In the pictures, Prigozhin appears in military uniform on the roof of a building allegedly located on the outskirts of Bakhmut.
Statements about the situation in the city have not yet been confirmed by independent sources.
“If earlier the troops of the Ukrainian professional army fought against us, now we see more and more children and the elderly, but their life here is short. One or two days,” he said.
Yevgeny Prigozhin asks Zelensky to allow the “defenders” to leave Bakhmut.
“The city is ‘actually’ surrounded,” said the head of the Wagner Group, who showed two teenagers and an elderly man in the pictures, allegedly captured during the fighting.
Previously, an alleged Ukrainian official known as “Magyar” indicated on the Telegram digital messaging network that the unit he commands was ordered to withdraw from Bakhmut, but 4,500 civilians out of 70,000 inhabitants remained in the city.
Information about “Magiar”, distributed in social networks, was also not confirmed by independent sources.
Zelensky said that the Kyiv troops will defend Bakhmut “to the extent reasonable”, not excluding the possibility of retreat of the defensive lines located in the western part of the city.
The information provided by the Ukrainian president has not yet been corroborated by independent sources.
The city of Bakhmut, which was called Artemovsk or Artemovsk from 1924 to 2016, is located in eastern Ukraine on the Bakhmutka River.
This is a strategic point, since it is connected by road to the two largest cities of Donetsk: Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, which are under the control of Kyiv.