Wagner announces the seizure of a strategic village near the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut

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The leader of the Wagner Group, the Russian oligarch Yevgeni Prigozhin, affirmed this Friday that Russian mercenary forces have taken control of a strategic village north of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, in Donetsk, in dispute for months.

“The Paraskoviivka settlement is completely under the control of Wagner’s units,” he said in a statement, collected by the Interfax news agency, although the Ukrainian Army, for the moment, has not confirmed this information.

The village of Paraskoviivka is located between Soledar and Bakhmut, also very close to Gorlovka. It is an important transport center to supply, as reported by the TASS news agency, Ukrainian troops in the Donbas region.

In view of the heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops in the area, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Irina Vereschuk, asked civilians residing in the city early this Friday to evacuate immediately.

The area’s governor, Denis Pushilin, said Tuesday that the fighting is taking place on the outskirts of the city, directly in areas that until recently were in the hands of the Ukrainians, the TASS news agency reported.

For his part, the head of the National Security Council of Ukraine, Oleksii Danilov, has previously warned that Russia plans to take over Bakhmut for the anniversary of the start of the war, on February 24.