Ukrainian forces advanced to the eastern front of Donetsk, where about 500 former mercenaries from the dismantled Wagner group returned, while in the southeastern region of Zaporijia, the Russian army built new fortifications around the strategic city of Tokmak.
“I received reports on the situation at the front, the supply of equipment and ammunition and data from intelligence services. There is progress in the Donetsk region”Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday, without giving further details.
The spokesman for the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ilya Yevlash, said on Wednesday that the army had achieved “successes” near the liberated towns of Klishchivka, Odradivka and Shumy, all south of the occupied city of Bakhmut.
Russian troops are trying by all means to recapture lost positions around Klishchivka and the neighboring town of Andriivka (which was also liberated by Ukraine), continuously attacking and shelling these two villages, he noted. It was in this part of the front that Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group took control of the city of Bakhmut last May, after a ten-month battle.
After the failed mercenary uprising at the end of June last year, the group of the late businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin was dismantled and the fighters had to subordinate themselves to the Russian Ministry of Defense with contracts, otherwise they would have to remain in exile in Belarus.
Yevlash confirmed to the RBC-Ukraine newspaper on Wednesday that “members of the Wagner group are on the territory of the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
“They are fighters who were in Belarus. Now their camps are being dismantled. There were about 8,000 of them in that country and now some have gone to Africa and others have negotiated contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense and are coming back here to the east. Ukraine, to participate in the hostilities both as instructors and as soldiers”he explained.
According to the spokesperson, there are approximately 500 fighters and “do not pose a significant threat as their leader, Prigozhin, is no longer there”after he died in an unexplained plane crash in August, an event for which many blame the Kremlin.
The author of a pro-Kremlin military blog, Rybar, claimed a day earlier that the first were Wagner units “began returning to Bakhmut to attack previously lost positions”.
The core of this group is said to have had ties to the Redut mercenary companies and the volunteer corps of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The remaining Wagner mercenaries, through their supposed new leader, Anton Yelizárov (known as Lotus), negotiated with the Russian National Guard for the inclusion of detachments under their responsibility.
The Russian Duma or House of Commons plans to soon study a bill that would allow the National Guard to include “voluntary formations.”
In turn, on the southeastern front of Zaporijia, where the Ukrainian counteroffensive had its greatest success in six months, the mayor of the occupied city of Melitopol, Ivan Fyodorov, noted on Telegram that the Russians “continue to build fortifications.”
Ukrainian troops are trying to advance towards Melitopol from the liberated city of Robotyne and also from Verbove, on whose western flank they will be able to open a passage to the second Russian defense line.
Before reaching Melitopol, they must capture the strategic city of Tokmak, about 30 kilometers to the south, because from there there are two roads: one to the Russian-occupied city and the other to Berdiansk, a port also occupied by enemy forces checked.
In another development in the conflict situation, two Ukrainian citizens were sentenced this Wednesday in Crimea to 15 and 17 years in prison after being found guilty of espionage by the Supreme Court of the Russian-annexed peninsula.
“The Supreme Court of the Republic of Crimea has concluded the hearing in the trial in which Ukrainian citizens S. Kotov and N. Petrovsky were found guilty of espionage”Crimea’s highest judicial body said in a statement released by the Interfax agency.
The trial took place behind closed doors because parts of the case constituted a state secret, the Supreme Court’s press service said.
Source: DN
