The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said on Sunday he had been promised as much ammunition and weapons as needed to continue fighting for the embattled Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, two days after he threatened to withdraw his fighters because the Moscow Department of Defense had failed to support them.
“We were promised as much ammunition and armament as we need to continue,” Wagner Group founder Yevgeny V. Prigozhin said in an audio statement posted on his channel on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday has been published. There was no immediate comment from the Russian Defense Ministry.
On Friday, Mr Prigozhin launched what was widely seen as a risky attempt by threatening to withdraw all his fighters from Bakhmut and accusing the Russian military bureaucracy of starving him with the ammunition needed to fully capture the city. He had appeared in a gruesome video standing in front of row after row of freshly killed militants and said the ministry had caused “useless and unjustified” casualties by failing to replenish ammunition stocks.
Mr. Prigozhin had previously complained about a lack of ammunition and threatened to withdraw from the city, but had not previously given a date. This time he named Wednesday – the day after Russia’s Victory Day holiday – as the deadline for his troops to withdraw to “lick their wounds”. The May 9 holiday celebrates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany and has had particular resonance in Russia amid the war in Ukraine.
General Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, wrote on Telegram on Sunday that he had visited troops in the Bakhmut area, where he previously said Russia was using “scorched earth tactics”. The shelling has intensified, he said, as Russia attempts to capture the city by Tuesday.
“Our job is to prevent this,” he wrote.
Few military analysts expected Mr. Prigozhin to carry out his threat, especially as the Russian Defense Ministry has no real alternative to the estimated 10,000 Wagner fighters fighting for control of the devastated city, which was home to 70,000 before the invasion.
A damaged building near Bakhmut last month. Credit… Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
A chunk of Bakhmut remains in Ukrainian hands, with Russia’s Defense Ministry claiming on Sunday its forces had made other small advances. All the territory Russia has gained in the city’s months of grueling conflict comes at tremendous cost to both sides, including the deaths of thousands of fighters whom Wagner recruited from Russian prisons and dumped straight onto the battlefield. Mr Prigozhin also said that General Sergei Surovikin, the commander of the Air Force nicknamed “General Armageddon,” has been appointed as his liaison to the military.
If confirmed, the appointment of General Surovikin, who forged a close relationship with Wagner while commanding Russian forces in Syria, could help resolve deep-seated tensions between Wagner mercenaries and the Russian regular army, which the Russian Efforts to advance in Ukraine have repeatedly been interrupted.
General Surovikin was appointed supreme commander of Russian forces in Ukraine last October, in a move taken as a sign that Mr Prigozhin is gaining influence in the Kremlin. But he was then replaced three months later by General Valery Gerasimov, the Russian military chief of staff.
Mr Prigozhin openly cursed General Gerasimov and Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, in his explosive video on Friday. Some analysts have attributed the tensions to rivalries for President Vladimir V Putin’s favor.
It is unclear whether the ammunition promised to Mr. Prigozhin can be deployed quickly enough to change the battle for the city that began last August. By threatening retreat, Mr. Prigozhin stressed how tired his men were of the fight.
A Ukrainian soldier driving through western Bakhmut last month. Source: Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
But the chances of that seem slim. Ukraine is expected to launch a counteroffensive soon, fueled by fresh shipments of advanced Western military equipment, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, that have already arrived in the country.
Here’s what else is happening in Ukraine:
Drones Targeted Crimea, Russia Says
Kremlin-appointed authorities in Crimea said Sunday that Ukraine launched a wave of drones in the occupied peninsula overnight, the latest in a string of reported attacks on Russian-held territory ahead of an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Mikhail Razvozhaev, the Russian-appointed governor of the port of Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea and home to the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, said “more than 10” drones were involved in the attack. At least three were destroyed or crashed, he said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that there were no reports of damage.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said a total of 22 Ukrainian drones had been spotted over the Black Sea overnight. All drones were shot down or deactivated, it said in a statement.
The claims could not be independently verified and Ukrainian officials had not commented.
Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, was a key channel for supplies and troops in support of Russian occupation forces in southern Ukraine. Attacks and explosions have increased there in recent months, which military analysts say could help set the stage for a long-awaited counteroffensive that Ukrainian officials said is in the final stages of preparation.
In the last two weeks alone, refineries and military installations on the peninsula have come under attack. Russian authorities have tried to downplay the attacks, but the Ukrainian military has said at least one of the attacks was in preparation for its counteroffensive.
Smoke billowed from a drone strike in Sevastopol, Crimea last month. Source: Portal
A deadly attack in Kherson
Nine Ukrainian mine clearance experts were killed when they came under fire from Russian forces while working in the southern Kherson region, Ukrainian officials said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his late night address on Sunday that the victims were killed on Saturday while they were “restoring people’s safety”.
The head of the state rescue service, Serhiy Kruk, said in a post on Facebook on Saturday that the demining team was shot at while they were working. Ukrainian mine clearance experts have been routinely killed and wounded attempting to clear mines, often laid by retreating Russian forces, but it is uncommon for them to be targeted by enemy fire. Where in the region the incident occurred was unclear.
Experts have removed 7,300 mines in the past week, the service said in a post on social messaging app Telegram.
Russian writer in stable condition after car bomb attack
Zakhar Prilepin, a famous Russian writer and nationalist ideologue, said on Sunday that both his legs were broken when his Audi SUV blew up in an apparent assassination attempt near the city of Nizhny Novgorod a day earlier.
Mr Prilepin, an outspoken supporter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a volunteer fighter there since 2014, wrote on Telegram that he was driving the SUV at the time of the blast that killed his friend and passenger. Russian state media previously reported that Mr Prilepin was a passenger.
The bombing was the third such attack on a high-profile Falcon since last August; the other two were killed.
Mr. Prilepin wrote that the explosion was caused by a mine that detonated shortly after he dropped his daughter. A second mine did not explode, he added.
Russian law enforcement officials said a suspect with ties to Ukraine’s special services confessed to the bombing. Ukrainian officials denied any involvement.
Mr Prilepin had been put on a Ukrainian wanted list for acting as both administrator and battalion commander for the separatists in the east, but Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, said in a TV interview that Mr Prilepin had no influence on the course of the war .
“Ukraine does not resort to such excesses,” he told Ukrainian channel Freedom TV.
A Russian jet whirrs a Polish plane over the Black Sea.
A Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jet buzzed a Polish border guard plane patrolling over the Black Sea near Romanian airspace, causing the Polish plane to lose altitude, Romanian officials said in a statement, which was then confirmed by EU border protection agency Frontex became.
The unarmed Polish border plane, taking part in an operation focused on migration, illegal fishing and other issues, landed safely after Friday’s encounter, the latest example of aggressive behavior by Russian fighter pilots over the Black Sea. In March, a Russian fighter jet collided with an unarmed US reconnaissance drone, forcing the American plane into the Black Sea.
In a statement, the Romanian government said the Russian plane’s “aggressive and dangerous maneuvers” caused turbulence that made it difficult for the Polish crew to control the plane. The Russian government did not comment on the encounter.
Milana Mazaeva and Enjoli Liston contributed to the coverage.