Yevhen Prigozhin, the founder of the Russian private military company "Wagner", said that his mercenaries seized the building of the Bakhmut administration in Donetsk region.
The press service of the businessman published a video in which he says that the Russian flag was raised over the administration in memory of the "soldier" Vladlen Tatarsky, who died on April 2 during an explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg.
"April 2, 2023, 11:00 p.m. We placed a Russian flag with the inscription "To the good memory of Tatarsky" and the flag of PMC Wagner at the city administration of Bakhmut. He is legally ours. The enemy is concentrated in the western areas," the message reads.
The Ukrainian side did not comment on this statement.
At the end of March, the representative of the Eastern Group of Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Serhiy Cherevaty, stated that the situation in the Bakhmut area is consistently difficult, but, according to him, the Russian military does not have a strategic advantage.
The commander of the Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, previously stated that the main task of the Defense Forces in Bakhmut, Donetsk Region, is to exhaust the overwhelming forces of the Russian Federation.
ISW analysts said in a March 22 report that the pace of Russian operations around Bakhmut appears to be slowing amid Western reports that Russian forces may be trying to launch an offensive in other directions. Russian forces made some progress in southern Bakhmut, and Ukrainian forces launched counterattacks on the southwestern and northwestern outskirts of the city on March 21 and 22.
And according to British intelligence, there is a realistic possibility that the Russian offensive on Bakhmut is weakening - this is partly due to the redeployment of Russian forces to other sectors.
