The head of the Russian private military contractor Wagner claimed on Thursday that his forces have started pulling out of Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, and handing over control to the Russian military, days after he said Wagner troops had captured the ruined city.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner’s millionaire owner with longtime links to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in a video published on Telegram that the handover would be completed by June 1. There was no immediate comment from the Russian defense ministry.It was not possible to independently verify whether Wagner’s pullout from the bombed-out city has begun, and the Ukrainian General Staff said on Wednesday that heavy fighting was continuing inside the eastern city after a nine-month battle that killed tens of thousands of people.
Prigozhin’s Bakhmut triumph delivered a badly needed victory for Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has lost momentum and now faces the possibility of a Ukrainian counteroffensive using advanced weapons supplied by Kyiv’s Western allies.
Top Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said on Thursday that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was already underway, cautioning that it should not be anticipated as a “single event” starting “at a specific hour of a specific day.”
Writing on Twitter, Podolyak said that “dozens of different actions to destroy Russian occupation forces” had “already been taking place yesterday, are taking place today and will continue tomorrow.”
Prigozhin has a long-running feud with the Russian military leadership, dating back to Wagner’s creation. He has also built a reputation for inflammatory — and often unverifiable — headline-grabbing statements.During the 15-month war in Ukraine, he has repeatedly and publicly chastised Russia’s military leadership, accusing them of incompetence and failure to properly provision his troops as they spearheaded the battle for Bakhmut.Wagner’s involvement in the capture of Bakhmut has added to Prigozhin’s standing, which he has used to set forth his personal views about the conduct of
the war.
