Russia's Wagner Mercenary Group Claims Full Control of East Bakhmut Region

Ukrainian soldiers in the protective ditch in Bakhmut. (Twitter/@DefenceU Viktor Bominets)

JAKARTA - The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner said on Wednesday his troops had taken full control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, scene of one of the bloodiest battles in the year-long war.

If the claims are true, it means Russian troops captured nearly half the city in their costly push to secure their first major victory in months.

However, the Ukrainian fighters remained defiant. Last week they appeared to be preparing for a tactical retreat from Bakhmut, but military and political leaders are now talking about holding their ground, inflicting as many casualties on the Russian strike force as possible.

The head of the Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin said his fighters, who had spearheaded the Russian campaign to capture Bakhmut, had now captured the east of the city.

"Everything east of the Bakhmutka River is completely under Wagner's control," Prigozhin said on Telegram, citing Reuters, March 8.

The river divides the city of Bakhmut, which lies on the edge of a swath of the Donetsk region already largely under Russian occupation.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military in an earlier statement said there were "conditions" in Bakhmut that allowed them to carry out the attack.

"The main task of our troops in Bakhmut is to hone the enemy's combat capabilities, to unleash their combat potential," Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesman for Ukraine's eastern military command, told public television on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a report Wednesday morning: "The enemy, despite significant losses, ... continues to storm the town of Bakhmut."

Russia, which claims to have annexed nearly 20 percent of Ukraine, has made progress in recent weeks around Bakhmut.

However, his winter offensive did not yield significant gains far into northern and southern Ukraine.

Russia says seizing Bakhmut would be a step towards seizing the Donbas industrial region, which comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. Meanwhile, Western analysts say Bakhmut has little strategic value.

But Kyiv says the losses Russia suffers there could determine the course of future wars, with a decisive battle expected later this year when the weather is better and Ukraine receives more military aid, including heavy battle tanks.

The Ukrainian General Staff also said Russian troops carried out more than 30 failed raids over the past few days near Orikhovo-Vasylivka alone, 20 km (12 miles) northwest of Bakhmut. They shelled an area of ​​about 10 settlements along the Bakhmut section of the front, the general staff said.