Russia's Wagner: Ukraine forces not quitting Bakhmut, more support needed

Russia's private security company Wagner says there is no sign Ukrainian forces are abandoning in the frontline city of Bakhmut, calling for more support.

For the past several months, Bakhmut and its surrounding towns have been the focal point of attacks by Russia, which launched a full-scale war against neighboring Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Neither side has full control over the city and both have suffered heavy losses so far.

The battle to seize heavily-fortified Bakhmut has been spearheaded by mercenaries of the Wagner group, which has made small but steady gains against the Ukrainian troops defending the town.

Bakhmut has been the subject of one of the most protracted battles in the ongoing war between the two neighbors, and has become the bloodiest of the 13-month war.

"It must be said clearly that the enemy is not going anywhere," said Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner Group, on his Telegram channel on Thursday. Even if the Ukrainian troops quit the down, he said, there would still be need for more support from the regular military before trying to advance further.

A day earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had raised the prospect of a pullout of the town, stressing Kiev would take the "corresponding" decisions if its forces risked being encircled by Russian troops.

The chief and founder of the paramilitary group further said on Thursday that Ukrainian troops had organized staunch defenses inside Bakhmut, particularly along railway lines and in high-rise buildings in the western section of the town, and that, if they fell back, they would take up new positions in the outskirts and in Chasiv Yar to the west.

"That's why, in my opinion, there's no talk for now of any [Russian] offensive," Prigozhin said, adding he was not yet satisfied with the support he was receiving from Russia's mainstream forces, including those launching attacks on adjacent areas of the front.

Specifically, his three persisting complaints are flank protection, command structure, and ammunition supplies. "The first question is to make sure that our flanks are well protected (that's with a big exclamation mark)."

"The second is to make sure that our command is properly organized, and third, it's ammunition (another exclamation mark)," Prigozhin said. He previously accused Moscow several times of poorly supplying his forces with ammunition.

The salt mining town, partially occupied by Russia, is Moscow's prime objective and its capture would give Russia a fresh foothold in the region.

Back in January, the US Treasury Department blacklisted the Wagner Group, accusing it of being engaged in “an ongoing pattern of serious criminal activity” in both Ukraine, where it is fighting with Russian troops and several African nations.

Ukraine's Zelensky urges allies to speed up assistance as Russia gains ground

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on its Western allies to speed up the pace of supplying weapons to his country, as Russia continues to gain fresh ground along Ukraine

Zelensky: Poland will help form coalition to give Ukraine warplanes

During his trip to the Polish capital of Warsaw on Wednesday, the Ukrainian president announced that Poland, a close ally of Ukraine, would help form a coalition of Western powers to provide Kiev with warplanes, as Warsaw did with battle tanks earlier this year.

"Just as your (Polish) leadership proved itself in the tank coalition, I believe that it will manifest itself in the planes coalition," said Zelensky in a speech on a square in Warsaw.

"Poland with you, shoulder to shoulder, we will establish freedom in Europe forever, tyranny will lose in history when it loses in Ukraine," he said. Russia would not defeat Europe while Ukraine and Poland were working closely together, he added.

Ukraine, which is in desperate need of modern warplanes in its war with Russia, hopes to secure advanced fighter jets such as the US F-16 from the West and use them, among others, in a counteroffensive it hopes to launch in the coming months.

Ukraine may talk to Russia on Crimea: Zelensky adviser

In an interview with the Financial Times, published on Wednesday, Andrii Sybiha, the deputy head of the president’s office, said that Kiev is "ready" to hold talks with Moscow on the future of Crimea if Ukraine's counteroffensive, planned for coming months, succeeds and Ukrainian forces reach the border of the Russian-annexed peninsula.

“If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open a diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” the senior official said, stressing, “It doesn’t mean that we exclude the way of liberation [of Crimea] by our army.”

Crimea declared independence from Ukraine on March 17, 2014, and formally applied to fall under Russian sovereignty following a referendum that had been declared illegal by Kiev. Moscow later annexed the region.

Since then, relations between Ukraine and Russia have been at odds. The United States and the European Union backed Kiev and refused to recognize the referendum results, later imposing sanctions on Moscow.

If Sybiha's remarks are taken seriously and regarded as Kiev's official stance, then there appeared to represent a U-turn on Zelensky’s previous statements in which he ruled out peace talks until Russian forces left all of Ukraine, including the Russian-occupied Crimea.

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