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The Wagner group, which announced it had taken control of most of the eastern Bakhmut area in the Donbass region of Ukraine, announced the opening of recruitment centers in Russia to reinforce its militia, which in recent months has lost more than 30,000 members, according to information from the United States.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the face of the Wagner group, announced on Friday the opening of recruitment centers in 42 Russian cities to reinforce his private army, which is suffering heavy losses in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
Prigozhin communicated in an audio message that reinforcements were arriving at the front line, although he did not specify figures, and assured that his mercenaries were better supplied with ammunition, although he remained concerned about the “shortage”.
“Despite the colossal resistance of the Ukrainian armed forces, we will go ahead. Despite the obstacles thrown at every step, we will overcome it together,” Yevgeny Prigozhin commented.
Bakhmut, the Ukrainian city belonging to the Donbass oblast, has been the scene of bloody trench warfare between Russian and Ukrainian forces for months. Wagner’s leader claims that he has practically surrounded the city.
For its part, Ukraine says it continues to uphold the position, which observers see as largely symbolic. In another message posted on social media, Yevgeny Prigozhin said that Ukraine was preparing a counteroffensive near Bakhmut.
“Yes, it is a well-known fact that the enemy is preparing a counter-offensive. Of course, we are doing everything possible to prevent it,” he said. The UK Ministry of Defense said Ukrainian troops and supply lines remain vulnerable to “continued Russian attempts to outflank the defenders from the north and south” as Wagner Group forces try to close in on them. in a pincer movement.
But the ministry added that it will be “very difficult” for Wagner’s soldiers to advance because Ukraine destroyed key bridges over the river, while Ukrainian sniper fire from fortified buildings further west has turned the thin strip of open ground into the center of the city in “a death zone”.
Wagner weakens, according to the US
Yevgeny Prigozhin acknowledged that his group is suffering heavy losses in the area, and even photographed himself next to the corpses of mercenaries to demand that the Russian government send ammunition.
In January, the United States estimated that the private militia numbered some 50,000 Wagner fighters in Ukraine, including 40,000 prisoners recruited from Russian jails with the promise of release if they survived six months, but in February, Yevgeny Prigozhin, close to President Vladimir Putin, he admitted that he was no longer allowed to recruit prisoners.
The Ukraine claims that almost 30,000 of Wagner’s men have been killed, wounded or deserted. In one of his messages released on Friday, Prigozhin thanked the Russian government for the “heroic” increase in ammunition production for its fighters, but said he remained “concerned about the shortage of ammunition and shells not only for the private military company Wagner, but for all units of the Russian Army”.
The United States claimed that 30,000 mercenaries from the Wagner group had been killed since the start of the war in Ukraine. According to John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council of the US Presidency, of those casualties, some 9,000 have occurred since mid-December with the intensity of the battle in Bakhmut.
“They are using their recruits, most of them convicted, as cannon fodder, they are literally throwing them into a meat grinder,” said Kirby, whose government has imposed sanctions on the group and labels it a “transnational criminal organization.”
The Wagner group has been the spearhead in the conflict for months. Wagner traces its origins back to 2014, when former fighters from the Slavic Corps, a private military contractor that operated during the Syrian civil war, decided to intervene in Crimea and Donbass on behalf of pro-Russian forces and against the Ukrainian government.
The group participated in the Syrian civil war in 2015 to provide support to the Russian Army. His battles against the self-styled Islamic State made him gain international fame, which led them to be hired in other parts of the world such as Libya, Mali, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Mozambique or even Venezuela.
The militia is financed by mining and oil resources and is linked to Russian ultranationalism and the extreme right. His name honors wilhelm Richard Wagnerthe favorite musician of Adolph Hitler.
With AP and Reuters
