瓦格纳首领声称完全占领巴赫姆特。
乌克兰说仍然在那里战斗。
2 hr 1 min ago
Ukraine’s military says it's still fighting for Bakhmut
From CNN’s Yulia Kesaieva, Andrew Carey and Sugam Pokharel
Ukrainian troops are engaged in heavy fighting with Russian forces in and around the long-contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv's military said in its daily update Saturday.
“Heavy fighting for the city of Bakhmut continues. In addition, during the day, the enemy conducted unsuccessful offensive actions in the direction of Bila Hora,” it said, referring to a village to the southwest of Bakhmut. Ukrainian forces have succeeded in regaining small pockets of territory there in the last fortnight.
Competing claims: Earlier Saturday, the chief of the Russian private military group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed his forces have
taken complete control of Bakhmut after months of brutal fighting.
CNN could not independently verify Prigozhin’s claim, and Ukrainian officials have disputed it, saying they are still holding territory on the western edge of the city.
3 hr 51 min ago
Wagner chief claims complete capture of Bakhmut, but Ukraine says it still controls part of the city
From CNN’s Darya Tarasova, Yulia Kesaieva, Andrew Carey and Sugam Pokharel
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military group, holds a Russian flag in this image from a video released on May 20. Prigozhin's Press Service/Reuters
The chief of the Wagner private military group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed Saturday that his forces have taken complete control of the long-contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
“The operation to capture Bakhmut lasted 224 days,” he said in
a video posted to Telegram, seeking to claim a final victory for the city.
CNN could not independently verify Prigozhin’s claim, and a message from a Ukrainian defense official partially disputed it.
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, in a Telegram post less than an hour after the Russian mercenary’s claim was published, admitted the situation in Bakhmut was “critical” but said Ukrainian troops were still “holding the defense in the 'Airplane' district of the city,” which is on Bakhmut’s westernmost edge.
“As of now, our defenders control certain industrial and infrastructure facilities in the area and the private sector,” she said.
While Russian forces have continued their slow street-by-street advance in the city itself for many months, Ukrainian forces have recently managed
to re-capture small pockets of outlying territory to the northwest and southwest of the city.
Prigozhin claimed his forces will hand the control of Bakhmut to the Russian military on May 25.
Background on Bakhmut: The eastern city has been the focal point of a grinding battle between Ukrainian and Russia fighters.
Stark
satellite photos show how much it has changed over the past year, with the city in ruins in many areas.
The city sits toward
the northeast of the Donetsk region, about 13 miles from Luhansk region, and has been a target for Russian forces for months. Since last summer, the city has been a stone’s throw from the front lines, so its capture would represent a long sought-after success for Moscow’s forces – and bring some limited strategic value.
The city has important road connections to other parts of the Donetsk region: eastward to the border with Luhansk, northwest to Sloviansk and southwest to Kostiantynivka.
More from Prigozhin: In the video, the Wagner leader thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for giving his fighters the "honor to defend our Motherland," but he also called out "the Russian bureaucracy" — as he has
publicly and forcefully done in the past few months — particularly Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov.
They "turned the war into their own entertainment," he claimed. "... Because of their whims, five times more guys died."
