Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar has noted that the Ukrainian army managed to advance by two km in Bakhmut in the past week.
Maliar also claims that Ukrainian forces did not lose a single position in Bakhmut in the past week, while the Russian troops are suffering heavy losses.
Meanwhile, the deputy minister rebutted reports that the Russian forces lack ammunition and weapons as false. According to her, the Russian military circles use this pretext as a scapegoat to justify the real situation on the frontline.
On 9 May, mercenary Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin recorded a highly-publicised video address to accuse Russia’s regular army of deserting its positions.
“A battle instruction came through that clearly stated [the following]. Firstly, deserting positions will be treated as treason. If there is no ammo, we will retreat and ask this question: who is committing treason here? A Defence Ministry unit has fled one of the [Wagner] Group flanks. They abandoned their positions, everyone ran away to expose a section of the frontline that is almost two km wide and 500 metres deep… The 72nd brigade today pissed away three sq.km. [of territory[ where I lost around 500 people. Because it was a strategic foothold,” Prigozhin said.
The Kremlin refused to comment on the address. According to spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the presidential administration did not watch Prigozhin’s appeal.
Later, Politico reported citing US government sources that the Wagner Group still controls 85% of Bakhmut despite their stated intentions to withdraw from the city.
